#ReclaimingInnovation: Innovation is Individual Impact

From Guest Writer, Kelvin Andrew Mveyange , Content and Training Manager at RLabs Tanzania

RLabs Grow Leadership training is all about meeting each individual girl where she is and empowering her to take the next steps.

Although there are many details that go into each training session, there are four key ways our training is individualised.

1. A relevant, welcoming, and accessible training format designed just for them

First of all, everything about the training is welcoming and accessible so the girls feel free to contribute right from the start. It can be more difficult for girls to talk in a strange environment. It starts from the way the chairs are set up in a circle so that everyone is close and can talk on an equal level, with none of those tensions of a formal meeting with a high table and the participants in rows like a school classroom. The facilitator welcomes the participants with a warm greeting and a smile, and class starts with a check-in on how each individual person is feeling that day, which encourages every person to start speaking in the later sessions.

We’re reaching girls who haven’t got high levels of education, and attending training can be really daunting for them. One girl once said – “when you started handing out pieces of paper, I started trembling, because I was afraid I’d be required to write”. In our work with UNICEF through the GRREAT programme, reaching girls age 15 – 19 out of school, we had more girls than ever in our training who could not read and write. Some girls arrived at the training venue in their village and hid outside first, peeping in, before getting the courage to come in.

Though all our training is done in Swahili, we still find that we have to make it even more accessible in different contexts. Some girls are more comfortable in their home language, and when they’re doing group work, those who know Swahili better are able to translate for their friends, so they can discuss the exercise in their home language then share back their discussions later in Swahili. We found that even words that are common for most urban Tanzanians like ‘changamoto’ meaning challenge, are not familiar in some communities.

We use a lot of games, group work, and learning by doing. All of the concepts start from girls’ everyday experience, so they can participate actively in the training. Like the session on fixed mindset, we start with a game where two people are tied together and it looks impossible to separate them, but there is actually a simple solution. When the girls have said it’s impossible, we have been able to spotlight their fixed mindset; then they see that it is possible and start to think about other fixed mindsets they might have in their lives.

We build up from whatever level their level of understanding is. When we were training young women from Songwe to be Grow Leadership facilitators, it was challenging for them to read the curriculum in Swahili and we ended up breaking each sentence down step-by-step to help them understand.

2.?Helping girls from the inside out

One thing that is unique about how our training reaches girls is the way it is designed to help them from the inside out. We do an exercise called ‘River of Life’ which allows young people let go of their emotional baggage by reflecting on the different ups and downs of their lives so far. We see quite a number of girls expressing pain about how their fathers abandoned their families. Some had fathers who could have supported them economically but didn’t, leaving them stranded so they couldn’t continue their education. I remember one girl who was so stuck and blaming her Dad, and it was stopping her from moving forward. The River of Life exercise really assists girls to restore the feeling of agency in their lives. I’ve seen a lot of girls helped in this way.

3.?Giving girls a fresh point of view

We have very creative tools that we’ve designed to help girls get a fresh point of view – like the ‘Owl’ session that we use as the very first session of Grow Leadership training. We show a picture of an owl, and they discuss their fears and misconceptions around owls. (Many believe that owls are used in witchcraft, and that if one lands on your roof, someone in the household will die.) Then we tell them interesting facts and show them pictures of beautiful owls; they are surprised, and often say – I never knew that owls are just normal birds like any others! When they use that tool it helps them to get a broader perspective and they can assess the other beliefs in their communities and to work out for themselves what to think. We don’t tell them, they come up with the ideas themselves. In Songwe, girls told us that if girls are not married by the age of 19, they are called ‘lemons’ because they are sour. They talk about things they thought they are not allowed to do during their periods, like cooking or picking leafy greens because they will dry out. But when they share other girls also say – I pick vegetables and it’s fine – it gives them confidence. ?

Some of their beliefs directly hold them back in business. For example, we have seen young people saying they thought their business wasn’t working out because someone had put a curse on it, but after the training they realised it was in their power to improve the business by getting more customers, keeping records, etc. Other beliefs limit girls in a more general way, like the fear of doing something different from others in their communities, or even fear that if they are successful, others will bewitch them.

After getting that fresh eye from the owl exercise, they can look at some of the misconceptions in their communities and see that something is not right. That new point of view is very important.

4.?Highly customized to help the girl work on her own plan for the next steps

At the end of Grow Leadership we hope that each young person will go and start a business. (Some also realise that they want to continue their education or get employment, and apply their new skills to trying to get work). After the initial sessions to shift their world view, the activities are highly personalised to help them think through their next steps. We have a session which helps each girl work out what her knowledge, skills, and passions are that she could turn into a business. Then once the girl has an idea for a business, she looks at what resources she needs and where she could get them (without taking a loan). Each girl works on it as an individual reflecting on the actual business she’s hoping to set up, and the facilitator helps each one depending on their context. The resources needed for one person’s passion will be different from the next person.

This is the way we reach a girl for who she is, as an individual.