"Inspiring others with zero funds" - my leadership eassy

Through my professional experience, I discovered that leadership is about empowering others by inspiring them, collaborating to execute a vision, and building team morale to create impact beyond yourself. Influence, to me, should not only be passed down by you as an educator or researcher but also exponentially multiplied by those you serve.

In April 2024, I was employed as a public-school teacher in Maan, Southern Jordan and started an initiative to improve adult literacy. I realized that 42% of parents aged 35-55 faced literacy barriers. Furthermore, I found that English was the greatest obstacle for 80% of participants at the primary and secondary levels, causing a 35% deficiency in their children's average grades. I recruited a team of three men and six women teachers, developed a flexible curriculum for four levels, and conducted 48 intensive lessons to overcome this linguistic barrier. Building my team was difficult because of six hours of overtime each week; however, personalized techniques allowed me to lower my attrition rate to 15%.

With zero funds and an estimated 1500 JOD price tag for materials, I reached out to five friends at Uminiah Telecom Corporation and asked my fellow teachers to do the same. I followed up with four team leaders and convinced them to allocate 200 books and bags as part of their company's social responsibility programs. 25 students managed logistics, and four students monitored the Facebook pages.

The results were astounding. Not only did we reach an 85% impact rate, with 20 men and 44 women overcoming the English language barrier by passing official public tests, but ten women and six men also enrolled in university with a zero percent rejection rate. This initiative is still running today, even 18 months later, and has tripled in outreach thanks to my team's selfless effort

While this may be the niche that you are involved in, it is important not to box in your vision or definition of leadership. The Chevening committee is looking for leaders who can function in any field, not in a niche area alone.


What information was your advocacy based on? Lay the foundation for your interest before feeding the publicly known knowledge to the reviewer.


Why this company in particular? How does their leadership function to promote education and literacy? How did you align with their values? Why did you choose to keep the project small? Why didn't you involve the school itself beyond the teachers, or perhaps a local government unit in charge of education?

The initiative has a good, although unbelievable foundation. How your leadership skills developed to get the advocacy off the ground and to build it up to the present day should have been an important discussion point for your essay. Basically, your leadership qualities and abilities are only briefly mentioned when the writing should have focused on highlighting the initiative, the obstacles, and how your leadership developed because you wanted to make this project a success.