Mitrataa is excited to announce the International Award (Duke of Edinburgh's Award) is joining our projects in Nepal!

When Nimu and I recently attended our Award Leader training in Kathmandu to allow Mitrataa to offer the International Award (known as the Duke of Edinburgh’s Award in some countries), Rob Oliphant opened the training with his reason for believing in the Award as a tool for empowering young people – because it has all the ingredients required to develop resilience. I almost jumped out of my seat with a shout of “Yes!” That’s exactly why we are so excited about the International Award as a tool for working with the amazing young women we support. Thanks to Tina and CHANCE for bringing Rob to Nepal and supporting the development of the Award here.

I completed my Gold Award when I was at school, resulting in so many opportunities for me. Here are just some of the reasons I am so excited about the opportunity to offer the International Award through Mitrataa:

1)    Strengths and passions – This is what Mitrataa’s work is all based in – building on strengths and passions to inspire people to achieve their dreams. The match is perfect.

2)    Networking – The opportunity for the girls to develop their networks and cheer squads of people who believe in them and can help them achieve their dreams in future.

3)    Resilience – As Rob noted, the research shows a number of core elements to develop resilience. The chart below showcases some of the overlapping elements.

 

Click on the image to enlarge it.

4)    Level playing field – I love that it creates a level playing field between the girls we work with and young people all over the world. No matter who is doing the award or where they are doing it, the steps and the resulting recognition are the same! That gives the girls so much courage and motivation to achieve their dreams. One of the common misperceptions we see amongst Nepalis is the “we are a poor nation who needs lots of help” mentality. Wrong story, we tell them! Nepal is an amazing country with lots of wonderful natural resources, a great culture, and fantastic people. The International Award helps them to believe that they are equally amazing as many other countries!

5)    International recognition – Not only do they learn a lot, have a lot of fun and make new friends doing it, they will also obtain an internationally recognised certificate which will give them an advantage when they are applying for college, jobs etc in future.

6)    Fun! – They get to spend time with like-minded people, doing things they love and having fun!  

This week, we had a group of girls from St Catherine’s in Sydney working with our Dream Centre girls. I asked some of the visitors to help us launch the International Award with our initial group – hearing from girls their age from Australia who are also doing the Award meant so much to them. Thanks to Sarah Hatch (who has done her Gold Award) and her students for taking time out to do this. There was a definite buzz in the air as the girls brainstormed what they would do for each of their elements. (Thanks to Rob for the activity of brainstorming A-Z for the skills and physical recreation parts. The kids love that!).


Bikarna, Nimu and Khil, our Award Team

The initial group of 15 girls will be mentored by Nimu, who will be supporting the group as her Service element for her Gold Award, Khil, one of our senior tutors who will also be doing his Gold Award and Bikarna, our soccer coach and ECA co-ordinator. We have already had requests from our other partner organisations in Nepal to offer the Award to their participants too.

We are so excited about offering the International Award in Nepal. It has so much potential and we are proud that after such a long time planning, we are able to offer it.



Our first International Award participants!

The power of partnerships - COMO and St Catherine's visit

One of Mitrataa’s core values is networks and the power of partnerships. Over the last few weeks we have seen the wonderful magic that results from the strength of both.
 
COMO Ambassadors Visit

Every year, COMO selects a number of Ambassadors from its staff worldwide. The Ambassadors then choose one of COMO’s partners to visit. We were so fortunate this year to host 2 COMO Ambassadors – Ika from Malaysia and Judy from London. Judy and Ika spent 5 days with us, running various workshops and activities for our network of inspiring girls and women.

 

They taught sales and marketing techniques to our women’s network on Tuesday, made Malaysian traditional crafts with our Passion for Life girls on Wednesday, ran an intensive English workshop for 4 of our Dream Catchers scholarship girls and attended our 20^th Dream Centre graduation at the Wiley Dream Centre on Thursday, attempted to see the mountains at Nagarkot (sorry for the clouds, guys!) and helped us to run a “How to take control of your future” workshop for 35 of our older Dream Catchers scholarship girls in Bhaktapur on Friday and then hosted a Nepali New Year’s Eve Party with momos and games for the children of Bal Mandir on Saturday.

 

 

They were welcomed with open arms at each event – and they gave back their love and energy in equal parts. We thoroughly enjoyed having Judy and Ika with us – they immediately felt very much like part of the Mitrataa family and we welcome them back any time. Thank you both for everything.

 

COMO is a wonderful partner and we are very grateful for all of their support which is not only financial but equally importantly they help us to improve and grow as an organisation. We really enjoy working with them and hope to be given the opportunity to host more COMO Ambassadors in future.

 

St Catherine’s inspire our Dream Centre girls once more

 

Our partnership with St Catherine’s School in Sydney is one of our most successful, and a large part of that is thanks to the commitment, passion and energy of Sarah Hatch, the co-ordinator from the school who works tirelessly to fundraise for Mitrataa as well as to prepare and host the group of St Catherine’s girls every year. It is always a fun-filled and inspiring week when they visit and the group this year was no exception! They taught life skills in our Dream Centres over 3 days with topics varying from team work and motivation to how to work with the community to protect the environment. The week then ended with a celebratory picnic with games, friendship bracelets and a drama performed by our latest Dream Centre graduates. The Dream Centre girls hosted the picnic, showcasing their leadership skills as well as their enthusiasm for games and spending time with their new friends from St Catherine’s.

Our annual picnic with St Catherine’s is the highlight of our Dream Centre network’s year and they are already planning next year’s event! But it is not only the annual visit which makes our relationship with St Catherine’s so valuable. In addition to their fundraising support which we really appreciate, many of their Duke of Edinburgh’s Award students work with us as part of their community service element. This year, 3 girls from St Catherine’s plus Sarah Hatch helped us to launch the Duke of Edinburgh’s Award (known as The International Award outside of Commonwealth Countries) for Mitrataa. We look forward to continuing this as our girls in Nepal embark on their International Award journeys also! Watch this space for news of our launch and our plans for the award in Nepal.

 

Thanks to our wonderful partners, COMO and St Catherine’s for your support in enabling us to empower the networks of amazing girls and women we work with in Nepal. We are excited about the possibilities for continuing to grow these partnerships in future!

 

We tailor all of our partnerships to ensure that they are mutual and that we build on each other’s strengths, passions and needs to create powerful, inspiring and fun-filled partnerships. If you or your company are interested in discussing a partnership with Mitrataa, please do not hesitate to let us know. We would love to work with you!