DMA
Nov 3, 2018
Scholarship / To serve the most underprivileged compatriots. Chevening Future Leadership and Influencing Essay [4]
Growing up in a war-torn country, I always have strong passion to become a leader to fruitfully contribute to a quest for transformation of lives of the most underprivileged compatriots in our beloved country, South Sudan. To my personal view, a good leader must have empathy with emotional intelligence, integrity with direction in life and sheer ambition to take risk in pursuit of achieving his planned goal for the wellbeing and betterment of his people.
After completing my undergraduate studies in 2015, I served with United Nations Children's Fund as Communication for Development Officer based in Malakal. As most of my work was based on social and behavior change communication, I conducted several advocacy and social mobilization sessions to engage senior government officials, religious group leaders, chiefs, media groups and notable community members. These sessions were mainly designed to advocate and campaign for the rights of child to education and health services like vaccinations. Initially, it was challenging because majority of South Sudanese have strong traditional believes which are incoherent with modern civilization. For example, pastoralists communities have a notion that boys should be in the cattle camps to keep and protect livestock. Whereas girls act as their source of income through payment of cattle as bride price triggering high rate of child marriages. However, with my selfless leadership ability and effective communication skill, I persuaded them to enroll their children in schools. I also influenced mothers and caregivers of children under 5 years of age to allow their children vaccinated with various vaccines to prevent early childhood diseases.
During all those events, the toughest challenge I faced was when a certain religious sect in one village barred me from conducting social mobilization meetings to talk to mothers and caregivers about vaccination. They cited that "prevention of diseases through immunization is not mention in the holy bible and no one has overriding powers than God to prevent diseases with what the so-called vaccines. All sorts of protection come from God". With my courage and ability to negotiate, I convinced them to finally understand the importance of vaccinations and took their children to health facilities for jabs. Subsequently, the immunization coverage in that county increased by 30% in the following month, making it the highest ever recorded coverage in that region.
In conclusion, I am self-assured that I possess leadership traits that make me a future leader in my country. To be a good leader in the future, one must learn new things to continue improving leadership skills. Therefore, I believe that Chevening scholarship will avail a platform for me to instill confident in me and improve my leadership abilities.
leading transformation for better life in South Sudan
Growing up in a war-torn country, I always have strong passion to become a leader to fruitfully contribute to a quest for transformation of lives of the most underprivileged compatriots in our beloved country, South Sudan. To my personal view, a good leader must have empathy with emotional intelligence, integrity with direction in life and sheer ambition to take risk in pursuit of achieving his planned goal for the wellbeing and betterment of his people.
After completing my undergraduate studies in 2015, I served with United Nations Children's Fund as Communication for Development Officer based in Malakal. As most of my work was based on social and behavior change communication, I conducted several advocacy and social mobilization sessions to engage senior government officials, religious group leaders, chiefs, media groups and notable community members. These sessions were mainly designed to advocate and campaign for the rights of child to education and health services like vaccinations. Initially, it was challenging because majority of South Sudanese have strong traditional believes which are incoherent with modern civilization. For example, pastoralists communities have a notion that boys should be in the cattle camps to keep and protect livestock. Whereas girls act as their source of income through payment of cattle as bride price triggering high rate of child marriages. However, with my selfless leadership ability and effective communication skill, I persuaded them to enroll their children in schools. I also influenced mothers and caregivers of children under 5 years of age to allow their children vaccinated with various vaccines to prevent early childhood diseases.
During all those events, the toughest challenge I faced was when a certain religious sect in one village barred me from conducting social mobilization meetings to talk to mothers and caregivers about vaccination. They cited that "prevention of diseases through immunization is not mention in the holy bible and no one has overriding powers than God to prevent diseases with what the so-called vaccines. All sorts of protection come from God". With my courage and ability to negotiate, I convinced them to finally understand the importance of vaccinations and took their children to health facilities for jabs. Subsequently, the immunization coverage in that county increased by 30% in the following month, making it the highest ever recorded coverage in that region.
In conclusion, I am self-assured that I possess leadership traits that make me a future leader in my country. To be a good leader in the future, one must learn new things to continue improving leadership skills. Therefore, I believe that Chevening scholarship will avail a platform for me to instill confident in me and improve my leadership abilities.
