Chevening Networking question
Chevening is looking for individuals with strong professional relationship building skills, who will engage with the Chevening community and influence and lead others in their chosen profession. Please explain how you build and maintain relationships in a professional capacity, using clear examples of how you currently do this, and outline how you hope to use these skills in the future. (minimum word count: 100 words; maximum word count: 500 words)
I have been able to improve my potentials and create an ever growing network of professional and personal contacts through the network that I created as a student at the Higher Teacher Training College. It all started in 2015 when a former classmate introduced me to the webinars organised, for English Language teachers, at the James Baldwin Resource Centre (JBRC) of the US embassy. Through these webinars, I learned innovative methods which have greatly improved my teaching and established contacts with teachers from many schools. My proactivity during the webinars and my ability to network with other participants earned me selection for a seminar captioned "teaching English with online tools" organised by the Pilot Linguistic Centre and sponsored by the US embassy in 2016. Since then, I engaged in sharing the added value of the webinars with colleagues and former classmates, some of whom even benefited from special training programs of the JBRC aside webinars.
The personal contacts created during the webinars were really helpful in 2017, when confronted with the challenge of creating and running clubs at Government Technical College Ndimi. I sought and received necessary documents and tips to get me started from teachers whom I met at the JBRC. I also sought the help of former colleagues of the English Department of Government Bilingual High School Ekorezok where I taught before being transferred. They readily assisted because I am still an active member of their staff social and WhatsApp groups.
Besides building contacts in former gatherings, I equally use informal settings to establish relationships. For example, I was able to push through the idea of organising an inter-school competition between my school and Government High School (GHS) Nguila, in February 2018 as part of the activities to commemorate the National Youth Week, thanks to the help of a teacher at GHS Nguila with whom I exchanged contacts during a journey from Ntui. When I nurtured the idea of the inter-school competition and thought of Nguila because it was closer, I sought the assistance of this teacher who made the necessary arrangement for me to meet the discipline master of GHS Nguila with whom I engaged discussions that later brought the heads of our institutions together. My ability to engage the discipline masters and get the approval of both heads of institutions over this project and others shows how effective I am in developing and nurturing networks and portrays me as an influencer in both professional and social circles.
In all, my networks have helped to improve my professional net worth. I know that Chevening is a giant step towards a global network and I hope to meet and interact with people who share my ambitions and tap from them to broaden my horizon. As a scholar, I will engage with other scholars and alumni, especially with those in the education sector as well as encourage and mentor more teachers to apply for Chevening so that together we can improve our education system through international teaching exchange partnership.
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