-Tenzin Choezin
I have been working as a social worker, and have served in two renowned organisations of our exile community; Tibetan Women’s Association (TWA), headquarter based in Dharamsala as their Project Officer and later at Tibetan Career Centre (CTA) as their Head Consultant.
In continuation of my service in this field, I further aspire to work for community development through training, counselling, and operational and administrative management, emphasising youth empowerment.
I am currently working as an Independent Consultant with expertise in training which requires me to upgrade my training methodologies frequently and build my capacity as a trainer for more effective execution of various programs.
Although in 2018 I got selected for the ‘Women’s Leadership for Community Development’ program provided by ‘Coady Institute- Igniting Leadership’- based in Canada, I could not take part in the physical training due to my full-time responsibility at Tibetan Career Center at the time.
But I re-applied for its virtual training in 2020 and got selected in a batch that consisted of women leaders from different walks of life representing many developing countries.
I completed my course with generous support from ‘Empowering the Vision’ through their Fellowship Programme. After completing the seven-week training, I have obtained international certification in women’s leadership for community development programme, conducted from January to March 2021. The program explored and celebrated women’s strengths, assessed leadership models and approaches, and included sharing tools and frameworks that prioritise equity and inclusion in the training fraternity.
The topics covered in my weekly course schedule from the program were as follow: 1)Self and leadership, 2) Leadership models and mentoring 3) Gender and power 4) Community, Context and Domains of change, 5) Strengthening organisations for community development, 5)Understanding movement and movements building, 6)The “So what?” Reflective leadership practice.
Apart from that, I learned about various leadership models, the impact of inter-generational gaps in leadership, Asset Based Community Development, Concept of power, Domains of change, etc.
The training module was a mix of online classroom sessions, study group sessions, exercises and major assignments loaded with reading materials. The certificate of completion was provided based on gradings from classroom participation, offline discussions, weekly exercises and major assignments.
During the course duration, as part of my major assignment, I collaborated with the Tibetan Centre for Human Rights and Democracy (TCHRD) as their co-trainer on Gender-Based Violence (GBV) training. We carried out training sessions in Tibetan schools and institutes around Dharamshala for 168 Tibetan youths, including College for Higher Tibetan Studies Sarah, Tibetan Career Center, Tibetan Institute for Performing Arts and Tibetan Day School, McLeod.
The target beneficiaries of the training were inclusive, aged 7-35 years, both male and female, college graduates and youth pursuing vocational education through the course of three months (February-April 2021). I also had the opportunity to utilise a few of the course materials and tools from the WLCD program, especially the concept of power and Domains of change as a sub-topic for GBV.
The WLCD training program inspired women worldwide to enhance their leadership for citizen-led community development and create space for social change to occur. With the training that I received, I am further motivated to employ my power ‘to, with and within’ to bring positive change in the community.