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!
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! |
No comments:
Post a Comment