Scholarship / Civic Engagement Program - Chevening Leadership and Influence Essay [4]

Please let me know about the mistakes

bringing a positive change

Being a reason to bring a positive change even negligible is interesting, this change may be is so small and intangible for others but this is a primary step to make the situation for other changes, it might be seeing a smile on a face or remarkable huge change. In my opinion leadership skill is equal to be able not just to bring a positive change but to be a cause for changes to be began, in fact creating a change is not the aim but doing the right thing at the right time and this is the reason makes a person capable to be as a leader.

I can remembered those days when I was working as the project manager of Afghanistan Civic Engagement Program with Supporting Organization for Afghanistan Civil Society. I was young, in a traditional country men do not accept it easily to work with a girl while I had the whole responsibility for the project. Irrespective of dealing and interacting with project team, the nature of project involved me directly with local people in villages that do not give their daughters the right of education and obtaining a job.

While they are not eager to have youth beside themselves and have their ideas and cooperation in issues arising there, I stood as a young girl to work with 30 villages and areas for more than thousands women and men, youth, influential people, Ulamma and people with disability not only to be their voice in reflecting their communities issues by conducting advocacies but to give them awareness of how they can go ahead to solve their problems peacefully in a simple and easy way.

Working with this project did not mean complete a task for me, this was the thing gave me the opportunity to be with people, see and understanding how they feel. Being a part of people make them more comfortable. Once I went to supervise of an ongoing session in Marqaz village and I saw women could not share their opinion easily and they were restrained and quiet, I did not introduce myself and sit near adults. I started talking with them by asking some short questions about their life, situation and even the session, some answered very short but some needed an ear to be listened.

Gradually I involved other participants too and made the circle larger to have an open and friendly discussion. Sometimes, it is needed to go beyond the rules to reach the right things. The session was being conducted according to the plan but I needed to see something beyond that and it was a peaceful interaction among adults and youth, women and men, ordinary people and influential people that I saw at the end of session when men came to women for asking to introduce two women for participating in village council meetings. Maybe this too small to be seen but a beginning step for Marqaz women to find their real place and be confident enough that they can.