GAGGA Leadership Development Program 2023

Background

Welcome to our 2023 Leadership Development program.

The GAGGA consortium is committed to supporting you with capacity building and leadership development. Leading an NGO in Africa is challenging – even more so for women who are often operating with limited funds, stretched resources, and under constant pressure and threat.

For you to succeed in your leadership role, you need to adapt, grow and, important, take care of your wellbeing. And to do this, we are delighted to invest in your learning and development through our third Leadership Program delivered by The Kairos Project.

Thank you for taking the time to visit our information page. If you are interested in a place on the program, simply complete the application form through the links below. We hope that you will join us on this learning journey.

The Program

Our program consists of three elements:

1. Themed Masterclasses (90mins x 3)

2. Peer Learning Groups (90mins x 3)

3. Buddy Pairs (40 mins x every three weeks). 

 

The idea of this program is to provide you with three unique co-learning spaces – Themed Master Classes, Peer Learning Groups and Buddy Pairs. All three spaces allowing you to work through your current work challenges by drawing on the power of collaboration and collective wisdom.

This approach is a complete departure from the traditional “inform” style of workshop. Here, you are an active agent in the direction and focus of these spaces. You select the themes of the Master Classes. You decide the topics of discussion in Peer Learning Groups and you work through challenges, one-to-one, in your buddy pairs. The power of these spaces lies in the fact that you make them relevant and meaningful to you.

The intention is for you to co-learn together and come away with concrete action and practices; to take tools and apply skills immediately into your working environment.

Each of these highly interactive spaces serve to increase your awareness and generate new perspectives and this leads to new choices as well as breakthroughs in how you see yourself in your work. Underlying the co-learning model is an incredible sense of belonging, solidarity and camaraderie.

Program Timeline

1. Meet the Team:   16th May, 12.00 -13.00 UK time

2. Master Class 1:   25th May, 11.00 -12.30 UK time

3. Peer Learning 1: 15th June, 11.00 -12.30 UK time

4. Master Class 2:  6th July, 11.00 -12.30 UK time

5. Peer Learning 2:  27th July, 11.00 -12.30 UK time

6. Master Class 3:  24th August, 11.00 -12.30 UK time

7. Peer Learning 3: 14th September, 11.00 -12.30 UK time online

During this period from May until September, the Buddy Pairs will meet online every three weeks for 40 minutes.

All Master Class and Peer Learning sessions will be held online.

Themed Master Classes 

Our Master Classes are highly interactive, participatory and immediately applicable to your professional and/or private context. The sessions provide a space to go deeper into a given theme relevant to your day-to-day reality of running an organization, for instance building effective teams, delegation, decision-making, resilience, powerful dialogues, prioritization, transforming conflict etc. Furthermore, you may receive further additional material resources to support ongoing practices. The themes will be selected from the responses in the Survey. 

• Each Master Class is of 90mins duration;
• Facilitated conceptual input by a Kairos expert around the given theme;  
• The Kairos facilitator will provide a practical tool, guiding questions and facilitate applied learning, peer exchange and reflection space.
• Additional learning material will be supplied as a Practice and Reflection Guide.

Peer Learning Groups (themed and/or emergent)

These virtual sessions are designed to provide a space for peers to connect, exchange challenges and experiences within a structured framework. The Peer Learning Groups can be themed, e.g. around pre-determined challenges that emerge from the needs assessment; or they can be “emergent”, whereby attending peers choose a challenge to work on in each session. Great for building trust in the community and accelerating learning and collaboration. 

• Each session is of 90 mins duration;
• Peer sessions take place in smaller group of up to 7 participants, grouped by region, language etc
• The Kairos facilitator will provide structure and guiding questions and encourage peer exchange, reflection and applied learning;
• Once established, facilitation can be handed over to the network to strengthen capacity and agency. Kairos can provide mentoring support to build and improve facilitation skills.

Buddy Pairs

This space allows participants to further explore their program insights and reflections in pairs; it is a highly effective way to build strong relationships across geographies, cultures and departments.

• At the end of the first Masterclass, we pair up participants in the program.
• The buddies are invited to schedule 40 mins conversation every fortnight – to be self-organized by the pair.
• All participants will be sent guidelines for how to run these sessions.
• There will be 8 buddy sessions throughout the program.