On Friday, 28th May, Bec gave a presentation to a group of around 150 girls from high schools across New South Wales as part of the Girls Leading Social Change day held at The Women's College in Sydney.
Bec provided the girls with much food for thought as she illustrated the numbers of illiterate, malnourished, and prematurely married and pregnant girls, their peers, in developing countries such as Nepal. Bec shared stories of some of the inspiring women and girls we have worked with in our Dream Catchers, Daisy Chains and Dream Centres programs as well as some sobering reminders of the reality with some stories that don't have happy endings.
Bec's session ended with a group work activity requiring the girls to choose a focus sector eg. education, water, health, and come up with an idea to make radical improvements to the lives of people through that sector. The responses she received were amazing!
Thank you to The Women's College for creating such a fantastic platform for girls to have their voices heard. A video of the day (including plenty of shots of Bec presenting!) is below.
Showing posts with label presentations. Show all posts
Showing posts with label presentations. Show all posts
16 June 2010
05 August 2009
Our first Summit!
Yesterday Bec and I had the great privilege of hosting the inaugural Mitrataa Summit in Kathmandu. The event was a full day mix of team building activities, workshops and brainstorming sessions attended by 13 representatives from our various partner organisations and projects.
The day started with each participant being given a chocolate – either Freddo, Caramello, or Strawberry Freddo (thanks Cadbury!). Depending on their choice they had to either share something about which they were passionate, someone they admire and why, or 3 things for which they were grateful. As this was the first time many of the attendees were meeting each other, this activity was a great ice-breaker as well as setting a positive tone for the day.
It was then time for the serious work of the day with Bec taking the group through an interactive workshop on project management and in particular, preparing project proposals. Some of our partners obviously already had some experience in this field whilst for others it was the first time they had been exposed to these concepts. Each person had to progress through the workshop by preparing their own ‘make believe’ proposal and it was interesting to see some of the wonderful and unusual projects people were creating! We had projects covering everything from organic tea farming to micro-hydro-power schemes to after-school support for students struggling with Maths and English.
There was a quick break for a delicious dahl bhat lunch in the middle before we continued into the early afternoon completing the proposals. By the end of the session each participant had created a complete draft proposal for their dream project. Many of them had even included a proposed budget and timeline!
Next we turned our minds to a quick brain-storming session on some of the challenges being faced in relation to collection of report cards from schools hosting our Dream Catchers Scholarship girls. This was a great opportunity for partners from different parts of Kathmandu and its surrounds to share their ideas on how best to manage the program. It was really rewarding for us to observe new networks of support being formed amongst like-minded individuals.
The next session was another brain-storming around sourcing suitable candidates for the Defying Gravity program – a new initiative to provide scholarships and support for extraordinary women to realise their dream business. It was agreed that as a concept this was quite new in Nepal and so the first step would be to host a number of workshops on dreaming, ambitions and passion. Each of our partner organizations will be sourcing women they see as potentially being suitable for the program and we expect by the end of the workshops to have determined the first recipients of the scholarships!
After a quick afternoon tea break it was time for the final session of the day which was a group discussion regarding options for our Dream Catchers scholarship girls once they have completed school. We have one such girl this year with 5 more currently in their last year of school now so it is an issue we need to be prepared for. There was an amazing amount of suggestions on what we could do and by the end of the discussion we had a long list of action points and plans to put in place. Suffice to say, the girls will not be forgotten and we will be creating opportunities and ways to support them for as long as they need it!
As the summit drew to a close it was so inspiring and encouraging to see all of the people we work with in Nepal working together to create solutions and plans for our future work. The day was a real affirmation of the individuals and organisations we work with and we both felt so proud of all we as a team have achieved in the last few years.
The day started with each participant being given a chocolate – either Freddo, Caramello, or Strawberry Freddo (thanks Cadbury!). Depending on their choice they had to either share something about which they were passionate, someone they admire and why, or 3 things for which they were grateful. As this was the first time many of the attendees were meeting each other, this activity was a great ice-breaker as well as setting a positive tone for the day. It was then time for the serious work of the day with Bec taking the group through an interactive workshop on project management and in particular, preparing project proposals. Some of our partners obviously already had some experience in this field whilst for others it was the first time they had been exposed to these concepts. Each person had to progress through the workshop by preparing their own ‘make believe’ proposal and it was interesting to see some of the wonderful and unusual projects people were creating! We had projects covering everything from organic tea farming to micro-hydro-power schemes to after-school support for students struggling with Maths and English.
There was a quick break for a delicious dahl bhat lunch in the middle before we continued into the early afternoon completing the proposals. By the end of the session each participant had created a complete draft proposal for their dream project. Many of them had even included a proposed budget and timeline!Next we turned our minds to a quick brain-storming session on some of the challenges being faced in relation to collection of report cards from schools hosting our Dream Catchers Scholarship girls. This was a great opportunity for partners from different parts of Kathmandu and its surrounds to share their ideas on how best to manage the program. It was really rewarding for us to observe new networks of support being formed amongst like-minded individuals.
The next session was another brain-storming around sourcing suitable candidates for the Defying Gravity program – a new initiative to provide scholarships and support for extraordinary women to realise their dream business. It was agreed that as a concept this was quite new in Nepal and so the first step would be to host a number of workshops on dreaming, ambitions and passion. Each of our partner organizations will be sourcing women they see as potentially being suitable for the program and we expect by the end of the workshops to have determined the first recipients of the scholarships!
After a quick afternoon tea break it was time for the final session of the day which was a group discussion regarding options for our Dream Catchers scholarship girls once they have completed school. We have one such girl this year with 5 more currently in their last year of school now so it is an issue we need to be prepared for. There was an amazing amount of suggestions on what we could do and by the end of the discussion we had a long list of action points and plans to put in place. Suffice to say, the girls will not be forgotten and we will be creating opportunities and ways to support them for as long as they need it!As the summit drew to a close it was so inspiring and encouraging to see all of the people we work with in Nepal working together to create solutions and plans for our future work. The day was a real affirmation of the individuals and organisations we work with and we both felt so proud of all we as a team have achieved in the last few years.
14 June 2007
Travelling Again!
Namaste again and apologies for the gap on posting lately! I returned to Shanghai from Kathmandu on Tuesday (5th June) after a very productive and rewarding trip. I barely had time to wash my clothes and detox myself before Bec and I were on a plane to Sydney the next Saturday (9th June).
Our time in Sydney has been extremely hectic in terms of catching up with friends and family but most importantly we have also had the opportunity to get some work done for the Foundation. We met with the board of directors in Sydney and spent a few hours discussing my recent trip to Kathmandu as well as plans for many of the projects to move forward. Some simple little things that we have worked out include adding PayPal to the website for easier donation/sponsorship payment, adding a subscribe button to this blog so we can spread the Mitrataa story further more easily, and making plans for more regular fundraising ideas for Sydney.
At the rather inhumane time of 7:30am on Tuesday (12th June) we visited MLC Burwood (a private girls' school in Sydney) to discuss Nepal and plans for a group of girls to visit next year. This is a really exciting project that now has around 28 people booked in to attend. They will travel to Nepal in April 2008, spend one week trekking and seeing the sights, and then the second week will be spent working on various projects for the Foundation. It was awesome, as always, to have the opportunity to speak to a group of people about our experiences in Nepal and share some of our passion and enthusiasm for doing work there. As plans become more concrete we will post details on our website - http://www.mitrataa.org/.
We also had the good fortune of being able to give a presentation about the Foundation to one of the Sydney district Rotary Clubs. This was organised through one of our good friends and directors, Sarah Johnstone. Again, we were more than happy to have the opportunity to speak about Nepal and we are hoping that we may be able to work with the Club on some initiatives in the new fiscal year.
That's all for now, Bec and I are spending this week in Bendigo having a bit of a retreat and catching up on some work that inevitably arises from all of this travel!
Our time in Sydney has been extremely hectic in terms of catching up with friends and family but most importantly we have also had the opportunity to get some work done for the Foundation. We met with the board of directors in Sydney and spent a few hours discussing my recent trip to Kathmandu as well as plans for many of the projects to move forward. Some simple little things that we have worked out include adding PayPal to the website for easier donation/sponsorship payment, adding a subscribe button to this blog so we can spread the Mitrataa story further more easily, and making plans for more regular fundraising ideas for Sydney.
At the rather inhumane time of 7:30am on Tuesday (12th June) we visited MLC Burwood (a private girls' school in Sydney) to discuss Nepal and plans for a group of girls to visit next year. This is a really exciting project that now has around 28 people booked in to attend. They will travel to Nepal in April 2008, spend one week trekking and seeing the sights, and then the second week will be spent working on various projects for the Foundation. It was awesome, as always, to have the opportunity to speak to a group of people about our experiences in Nepal and share some of our passion and enthusiasm for doing work there. As plans become more concrete we will post details on our website - http://www.mitrataa.org/.
We also had the good fortune of being able to give a presentation about the Foundation to one of the Sydney district Rotary Clubs. This was organised through one of our good friends and directors, Sarah Johnstone. Again, we were more than happy to have the opportunity to speak about Nepal and we are hoping that we may be able to work with the Club on some initiatives in the new fiscal year.
That's all for now, Bec and I are spending this week in Bendigo having a bit of a retreat and catching up on some work that inevitably arises from all of this travel!
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