The feedback received was overwhelmingly positive; some highlights include:

• 100% of those interviewed said that the ELT Train the Trainer Program was helpful
• 70% of those interviewed said the ELT content has helped them and their organization gain a deeper understanding of leadership development
• Over 90% of those interviewed felt that the ELT could be used for a variety of audiences and purposes
• 100% would recommend the Early Leadership Toolkit to others

Interviewees were excited about how flexible the different activities in the Toolkit were, which allowed them to be easily adapted to different audiences.  Some of the ways interviewees have used the Toolkit with include:

• Leadership seminars with college students
• Working with business school students
• Creating a week long summer leadership camp for middle school students
• Sports teams
• Working with non-profit organizations
• Teen health workshops
• Training volunteers at a YMCA
• Board meetings
• Consulting

Interviewees valued the in-depth conversations that the Toolkit modules and its tools enabled their participants to have.  Additionally, interviewees commented on how the Toolkit and the Train the Trainer program had helped them in their own personal development – to take other people’s considerations more seriously and to become a better listener.

Interviewees also had some great suggestions for us to improve the user experience, which we are currently working to implement.  These included hosting webinars about how other users are implementing the Toolkit content and refresher courses on how to facilitate certain modules.

If you are interested in learning more about the Toolkit and how youth leadership development practitioners around the world are using it, please contact Sarah Miller at millers@ccl.org.

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Located in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, home to both the African Union and the United Nations, CCL’s new office enjoys a strategic position for advancing the understanding, practice and development of leadership across the continent.

“CCL has been in Africa for many years, allowing us to grasp the special nature of this region’s cultures and aspirations,” says Rudi Plettinx, Vice President and Managing Director, CCL Africa, Europe and the Middle East (EMEA). “However, this is CCL’s first base in Africa, a major step to better serving leaders throughout the region. This office will help us meet the rising demand for African leadership development and we look forward to helping Africa embrace its leadership potential.”

Unprecedented economic development and the continent’s increasing geo-political importance intensify demand for effective leadership in Africa. Other challenges, such as youth unemployment, resource price volatility and food insecurity add to the need for strong leadership capable of translating Africa’s growth into greater opportunities for future generations.

“CCL is helping to redefine leader and leadership by focusing on a systems approach that begins with the individual, moves to group and organization, and ultimately focuses on leading society,” says Steadman Harrison III, CCL’s Africa Regional Director. “Leadership development can be used as a lever to address the most important challenges of our generation. It is fitting that we are more accessible to the leaders who will impact these pressing issues in the season ahead.”

Africa is widely acknowledged as “the continent of the future.” The WEF describes it as ‘poised for a growth spurt’ and predicts that seven out of the ten fastest growing economies over the next five years will in Sub-Saharan Africa.

“We believe CCL’s Addis Ababa office will play a pivotal role in helping Africans hone their leadership skills at every level of society,” adds Plettinx. “It will act as a base for CCL’s Leadership Beyond Boundaries (LBB) work: an initiative launched in 2006 to democratize leadership development and unlock human potential in an affordable and accessible way.” CCL has been involved in projects in 16 African countries, including Liberia, Nigeria and Ethiopia, working together with, amongst others, the Marrow Foundation, which funded leadership development for street children to reform education in Africa.

“Many leadership development programs currently offered in Africa are expensive and available almost exclusively to professional elites,” adds Harrison. “The Center for Creative Leadership has a different approach in Africa that is a good fit for social sector organizations and NGOs, as well as organizations, such as UNDP, Peace Corps and World Learning.”

More information at: http://www.ccl.org/africa/

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And let us know if you’re doing something awesome with the toolkit and would like to share your story!

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Mark your calendars!  The Leadership Beyond Boundaries team has an upcoming Early Leadership Toolkit Train the Trainer Program.  The dates are as follows:

Greensboro, NC, USA:  April 25, 26, 27 – The program will run for 2.5 days.  For more information on the Train the Trainer Program, download the flier here.

This program is being run in conjunction with the Guilford Coalition for Adolescent Pregnancy Prevention, which is funded by Cone Health Foundation.

For information on how to register, please contact Joan Bello at belloj@ccl.org or 336.286.4438.

To read about some of our past Train the Trainer programs and how the Early Leadership Toolkit is being used, check out these blog posts:

• It does take a village:  The Early Leadership Toolkit Progam in Singapore
• Early Leadership Training at Loyola Jesuit College: Abuja, Nigeria
• Drawing New Futures with Street Kids in Addis
• Moments of Connection – Early Leadership Toolkit Train the Trainer Program
• Youth Leadership Development for Reforms – A case study from Kenya
• Early Leadership Toolkit – Notes from London
• Unlocking India’s Demographic Dividend with the Early Leadership Toolkit
• Youth Leadership in Kenya
• Early Leadership Toolkit Pilot Program
• Early Leadership Toolkit Updates – Notes from Greensboro

We hope to see you in Greensboro.  And, as a bonus,  April is a beautiful month in North Carolina!

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What do a retired Xerox sales manager, former restaurant owner, and an executive coach all have in common?  A desire to empower Singapore youth to expand their leadership abilities and global perspective.

Leadership Beyond Boundaries just wrapped up our first Early Leadership Toolkit Train the Trainer Program in Southeast Asia and the energy and excitement about figuring out new ways to engage students and build community in Singapore and elsewhere in Asia was palpable.

With a diverse group of youth leadership development practitioners – from adventure-based experiential education to service learning and social innovation programs – we spent two and a half days exploring effective ways to facilitate with young people and make leadership development relevant and engaging.

Youth Leadership Development Panel Discussion

We were fortunate to be able to convene a panel to discuss major challenges facing youth leadership development practitioners in the region.  On the panel were representatives from the following organizations:  Pour un Sourire d’Enfant from Cambodia, the YMCA of Singapore,  Youreka  and QUEST Alliance  from India, Voice of the Children from Malaysia, and the Gender and Development Initiative  from Myanmar.

Working with a range of young people, from the very affluent to the severely impoverished, these organizations still struggle with many of the same challenges in working with young people to reach their potential and focus on similar content areas.

Some of the themes that emerged were:

-Leading Self:   From the slums in Cambodia to well-off private schools in India, a key need expressed was the importance of helping young people build self-confidence and take ownership of their lives. Like other educational systems from around the world, schools across the region are seen as not doing enough to help young people develop competence in their own capabilities, internal resources, and problem solving abilities.  Some of this is an outcome of schools’ focus on rote memorization.  Practitioners also cited community challenges; for example, PSE faces serious challenges as a result of the destitute environments their students grow up in.  However, staff there have realized that when students learn key strategies for leading their own lives, their parents often follow suit, creating healthier and more economically stable environments for everyone.  For Nikita of QUEST Alliance, teaching a young woman tailoring skills means nothing if she does not also have the confidence and initiative to pursue business opportunities for herself.  Clearly, self-leadership is the foundation for other forms of leadership to occur.

-Leading with Others:  Practitioners also spoke of a need for young people to learn leadership skills that will be useful in working with others in local and global economies.  Victor, of the YMCA of Singapore, spoke of the need for young people to learn effective group leadership skills so as they become the ‘leaders of tomorrow,’ they will have the capacity to and recognition of the importance of volunteering and serving on social sector boards.  Without effective group leadership skills like communication, feedback, and listening, these young people will not get where they want to go and where society needs them to go.  Work-related leadership skills are also important to teach because they are what youth leadership program funders – parents, companies, foundations – want to see taught and securing adequate funding is always a challenge for youth programs.  Finally, they are important to teach because they equip young people with the skills necessary to work for personal or social change.

-Leading Change:  One of the major themes of the training program and the panel was the need to involve young people in service learning projects as a way to develop leadership skills and gain empathy.  STEP, a new NGO based in Singapore, is creating programs to serve this need in tandem with PSE of Cambodia.  Sway, of GDI rom Myanmar, spoke of the need for young women to gain self confidence and life leadership skills in order to become agents for change within their local and national communities.  Noting that women in her country are often relegated to the home, she is hopeful that through leadership training and education of men and women, positive social change for women will occur.  Odie Abdul, from Voice of the Children, related that her organization is seeing more and more young people anxious to volunteer and make a difference in their society, particularly on behalf of their peers.  She suggested that parents and grandparents should volunteer with their children to encourage this trend and highlight the importance of giving back.

It does take a village…

One of the most salient themes arising from this Early Leadership Toolkit Train the Trainer program was the importance of working intergenerationally.  With an age range of 22 to 74, our participants were one of the most diverse groups to attend one of our programs.  It is clear from this diversity and from the organizations present, that youth leadership development needs support from across different sectors of society.  Whether it is PSE’s new community development initiative aimed at helping young students succeed or a retired accountant working to make service learning leadership programs possible, effective youth leadership development should involve more than just youth serving organizations and their staff.

Part of doing this work effectively, however, is ensuring that the adults involved understand what is needed to work with young people in positive ways.  This conversation arose repeatedly in our two and a half days and prompted lively discussions.  Ultimately, we concluded, the most important aspect of working with youth is respect.  And the second most important thing is to trust the process.  When you develop a relationship with a young person based out of respect for their capabilities and your own ability to work with young people, the results are often amazing and inspiring.

-Sarah Miller

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