The twelfth of our 20 Leadership Lessons Learned in East Africa: given the right tools, people can drive their own learning. Leadership development doesn’t require a facilitator and a nice mix of easy-to-remember sayings and stories; that mental model is preventing us from reaching thousands, maybe millions, who don’t have access to our traditional format of developing leadership. Enter the toolkit—a highly contextualized and user-specific curriculum that is packaged together and dropped into a group, tailored to their needs.
View our previous big idea >>
Putting Learning in the Hands of the User
People are smart. If given the right tools and support, there’s no reason they can’t drive their own learning.
We too often think of the leadership development experience as something that only happens when you have a really good facilitator with a nice mix of easy-to-remember leadership sayings and good stories. But that mental model is preventing us from reaching thousands, maybe millions, who don’t have access to our traditional format of developing leadership.
Enter the toolkit—a loose term we use to describe highly contextualized and user-specific curriculum that is packaged together. Here’s a look at just some of our toolkits:
- Girls Club Toolkit: We’ve developed a girl-run, modular toolkit that can be dropped into a group of 14-17 year old girls. Girls take turns facilitating and debriefing the content, building their own confidence in the process. Modules range from leadership to healthy relationships to community service.
- Boys Club Toolkit: Similar to the one above, the Boys Club Toolkit focuses on leadership, entrepreneurship, and several other topics. A big theme in this one is getting boys to empathize with, and build respect for, girls and women.
- Audio Toolkit: Designed for low-literacy groups, we’ve made women’s and early leadership development an audio experience. Initially using solar-powered radios, we are now moving more towards mobile phone-based players because of their explosion across East Africa. Our audio toolkits use a radio drama format to engage listeners in a story and then debrief through a narrator. We often combine the audio component with a picture-based guide to “put something in the middle” to foster understanding and meaning-making with small listener groups.
Questions for Further Reflection:
- What kind of toolkits have you used in your life?
- What kind of skillsets would be useful to you?
Tell us your big ideas in the comments.
<< Our previous big idea | More to come!
For more info, watch the story of Zelalem and other girls who are rewriting the story of motherhood in Ethiopia, starting with what they’ve discovered using the Girls Club Toolkit:
At CCL we’re inspired by mothers from across the world. This is a film about a 12 year old girl, Zelalem, and her mother Zehlu, who are rewriting the story of motherhood in Ethiopia.
This video is for 12 year old girls and their mothers, across the world, that are changing the statistics of what it means to be a girl. Mothers, take some time to watch this video with your girls and share the inspiration.
#RewritetheStory #Motherhood #CCLResults
Our Early Leadership Toolkit – A set of curriculum and tools that facilitators and educators can use to design leadership development programs that meet the needs of the young people they work with. Full of dynamic experiential learning exercises and though-provoking discussion questions, the Toolkit curriculum consists of 20 different leadership topics. Learn more >>
This series, 20 Leadership Lessons Learned in East Africa, was brought to you by CCL’s Ethiopia office and Leadership Beyond Boundaries, an initiative by the Center for Creative Leadership to democratize leadership development and unlock the power of human potential around the globe.
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