Leadership Development for African Women Scholarships

The need for effective leadership in rural sub-Saharan Africa has never been greater. Specifically, African women leaders are needed to address gender differentiation, oppression, and extreme poverty within these local contexts. The need for effective leadership is certainly a global one, as poverty, economic disparity, conflict, and innumerable other challenges shape the spiritual and material well-being of individuals and societies around the world. This scholarship project seeks to address the unique needs and opportunities that are especially compelling in rural sub-Saharan Africa.

This scholarship program makes it possible for each African woman selected to earn an advanced degree in leadership and change, applied to specific contexts where she will work with indigenous people to find solutions to complex and daunting challenges. Our first recipient of this scholarship is Patricia Ali.

Patricia's Story

Patricia Ali is thirty-one years old, and she grew up in Lagos, Nigeria, where her father served in the Nigerian military. Her family is from Taraba State in northeast Nigeria. She is a graduate of WGM’s Living Learning Community for Leadership Development with African women, and she testifies that:

"The Living Learning Community for Leadership Development with African Women completely transformed my life. I learned to embrace leadership and learning processes that allow for mutuality and dialogue where people can discover themselves, uncover oppression, and recover their humanity. Being part of the LLC has given me the opportunity to pursue my passion of helping marginalized groups of people with humility and empathy, seeking ways to work with them in systemic and sustainable ways.”

Since graduating from this program, Pat became a full-time WGM Global Worker, serving as the co-director of the LLC. She also launched a life-changing women’s development project in a rural village in Taraba, Nigeria, which she continues to oversee and visit two months each year. Besides this important work, she also teaches courses on leadership and change as a part-time instructor at universities in Burundi, Kenya, and Nigeria. Pat has been admitted into Antioch University’s prestigious PhD in Leadership and Change program, where she will focus her research on how to help rural women to engage in grassroots leadership processes to improve their lives and communities.

Program Components

1. Scholarship Fund. The scholarship fund allows emerging African women leaders to enroll in an advanced degree program at an approved university specifically to study leadership for their home contexts. This will include empirical research to be completed in rural African settings with the target of publishing findings in African academic journals.
2. Practical Outcome. Students will create and implement women’s development programs in their home country during or after their degree program is completed. They will lead change by mobilizing the African women themselves in ways that will address the complex contexts in which they live. Indigenous leadership will lead to meaningful community development, improving the lives of many women and girls throughout sub-Saharan Africa.
3. Ongoing Professional Development. It is important for graduates to continue to learn and grow within a collaborative setting of Christian fellowship and professional expertise. To that end, graduates stay in touch with each other, will conduct and participate in ongoing development opportunities, such as retreats, conferences, forums, workshops, writing circles for publications, etc.

Impact

Graduates of this scholarship program will work directly with rural women, helping them to shape new ways of confronting complex and daunting challenges to their wellbeing, leading to individual and community development. Recipients of this scholarship will learn how to effectively represent rural women to government agencies, NGOs, foundations, and other organizations to continually raise awareness of their plight. They will build and mobilize international networks of Africans to address severe and persistent problems. They will lead efforts to help these women become their own change agents with the capacity to engage in grassroots leadership work together.

Financial contributions to this project provide students with resources for tuition, fees, textbooks, transportation, and lodging for mandatory academic program residencies.