2023 East Africa Leadership Journey Program: Centering Women and Girls in Health
Deadline: 13-Jan-23
WomenLift Health is seeking applications for East Africa Leadership Journey Program that is designed to provide talented mid-career women leaders in health with the safe space to explore their authentic leadership through vulnerability and reflection; an inclusive and diverse network which fosters a strong sense of belonging; tools and strategies for enhancing their voice, presence, and influence – all the while being supported by a powerful group of peers, mentors, and coaches.
The program imparts contextualized tools and frameworks to address the individual, organizational, and societal challenges that women leaders in global health face today.
Themes
Leadership Projects fit into one of four themes:
Centering women and girls in health
Catalyzing institutional change
Optimizing pathways to leadership
Building integrated & resilient health systems
Elements of the Journey
Hybrid Learning
Learning Touchpoints are facilitated, virtual and in-person group sessions. Cohort members explore leadership frameworks, research & tools in highly interactive learning touchpoints and workshop-style sessions focused on dynamic practice. The touchpoints focus on personal & professional growth, relevant topics and priorities for health leadership, as well as their Leadership Projects. These sessions allow the cohort to share with and learn from each other.
Virtual Mentorship
Effective women leaders are championed by a network of strong supports, including that of mentors. They identify senior-level leaders from different backgrounds, health sectors, and disciplines to serve as mentors to the cohort. Mentoring groups, comprised of several cohort members and one mentor, are grouped based on complementary backgrounds and professional trajectory. Cohort members will be able to rely on their mentor as a technical and career resource during the Journey.
Virtual Coaching
Having a personal leadership coach is critical in helping navigate change and adapting to new challenges on the path towards leadership roles.
In-Person Sessions
The ‘Leadership Immersion’ is a 3-day experiential convening that takes place a few months into the Journey. Through dynamic discussions and hands-on exercises, cohort members enhance their skills, apply them to real-world examples, and reflect on lessons learned. A series of powerful conversations will complement the instruction, featuring eminent figures in global health who have led transformational change.
Leadership Project
There are only 4 rules for the Leadership Project:
It should focus on improving outcomes at the intersection of health and gender equality, or take a gendered lens on a global health issue
It should leverage your leadership skills
It should be within your scope of control or influence, but also stretch you beyond your day-to-day work requirements
You should be passionate about it
Your Leadership Project could accomplish one or more of the following, but is not limited to:
Answering a research question
Promoting health or gender education in a particular group
Developing a new or better technology
Innovating a better way to collect/analyze/use health/gender data
Improving a gender or health-related process/system in your organization
Empowering or enabling women in your community or organization to be successful
Incorporating a gendered lens into a policy, practice or research project where it was absent.
Eligibility Criteria
You are eligible for consideration if you meet all of the following criteria:
Identify as a woman
Work in a role that focuses on public health policy, practice, and/or research (your work and partnerships serve populations at the national level in your country of residence or East Africa regional level and may include practicing public health in hospitals and health centers, producing research and innovation, creating or implementing policy, and managing teams/departments or projects/grants.)
Mid-Career Leader: Possess sufficient years (10 – 20 years) of experience in public health
Reside and work within Kenya, Rwanda, Uganda, South Sudan or Tanzania
Must be a national of one of the five countries
Possess fluency and ease in written and verbal communication in English to express the next level of emotional processing required for the Journey
They require participants to be living in the Central Africa (CAT) or East Africa (EAT) time zones for at least 75% of the program as they believe time zone compatibility is essential to your ability to participate at the touchpoints and to engage with your peers within and outside of the sessions. WomenLift Health is committed to selecting diverse cohort members, representing different sectors (public, private, academia, NGO, philanthropy), disciplines, and cultural backgrounds.
For more information, visit https://www.womenlifthealth.org/africa/eastafrica/2023-application/