Now that the Leadership team has completed the Financial Inclusion (formerly CED) Program Planning Process (PPP), we have more time to widen our scope to other concerns for the rest of the Nuru Ethiopia team. So, I thought I would take this opportunity to introduce the concept of our Leadership Workshops.

While Nuru Ethiopia already has Level 1 training, Level 2 training, Project Management Training and the above trainings encapsulated within PPP, there are always emerging needs that arise within the teams and within the organization. Leadership workshops are our answer to investigating, addressing and resolving those emerging needs. We continually encourage an organizational environment that fosters open communication, feedback, and personal and professional growth. We aim for a culture that is honest, sincere and upfront.

In such a way, we develop our managers, officers, and the rest of the Nuru team to consistently maintain a line of communication that keeps the Leadership team up to date with any emergent issues and professional development needs. We listen, we research, we learn, and then we share our knowledge through training and capacity building. We keep an ear to the ground and work with each other to further develop the capabilities of our team.

The idea is that, even if everything is going great in our programs and among our teams, there is always room for improvement. And, as the Leadership team, we are constantly striving to reach higher levels of professional development. Our last Leadership workshop was presented by Tekalign Teferi, Leadership Training and Extension Officer, on the topic of gender and rural development. We examined the ability of our programs to reach the entire household unit, spoke about some of the current issues involved in equal participation in programs, and brainstormed how to integrate gender inclusion for the future of Nuru. Prior to that, we assessed a need within our larger Nuru team for capacity building on effective feedback and communication skills. In this workshop, the Leadership team created and presented role-plays to analyze good communication strategies among team members. The Training Officers then lead a highly participatory discussion across teams to ensure the depth of understanding and action items for strategic and systematic growth.

Thus far, the Leadership Workshops have been immensely successful in their ability to correctly spot and evaluate capacity building needs. In the future, we will continue our ongoing research and development and continue to encourage the Nuru culture of open dialogue and honesty. With this in mind, we continue with an appreciation of constant self-improvement so that the rest of our Nuru team, as well as ourselves, can continue to grow into the best servant leaders that we can be.

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