Recognising the need for more skillful and confident leaders in Bougainville, the Young Women in Leadership Project is training and supporting 120 young women to develop their leadership skills. Funded under the Australian aid program through the Pacific Women Shaping Pacific Development initiative, a key component of the project is to strengthen the younger women's relationships with mature women leaders, creating opportunities for mentoring and skill sharing. Young women who participated in the pilot program in 2015 are now trainers and are imparting their knowledge to a new cohort of young women leaders.
In May 2016, the Bougainville Women's Federation chose nine young women from the 29 who participated in the 2015 pilot phase project to trial its leadership manual in workshops. Through assessments of their performance, five of these young women were selected as trainers. Pacific Women is supporting these women to roll out the Young Women in Leadership Project to a new group of young women leaders.
Ms Irene Subalik is one of the newly chosen trainers. Ms Irene Subalik comes from Nissan Island and her childhood dream was to become a teacher. However, unable to attend teacher's college after completing Grade 12, she instead focussed her attention on community work. She joined her church youth group and became an active member of the Nissan District Women's Federation.
Now, through her involvement with the Young Women in Leadership Project (YWLP), Ms Subalik has been employed as a short term researcher and trainer, conducting leadership trainings for Caritas Australia's Catholic Youth Leadership Program.
Reflecting on her experience with the project, Ms Subalik said:
'After attending the ToT (Training of Trainers), coupled with mentoring from Bougainville Women's Federation staff and the experience from running two leadership trainings for Caritas young women program, I feel I'm very capable of running other trainings that I have already attended and importantly knowing the context of the target communities or groups. To me it's not just about being a trainer that matters but also being an advocator on issues that are affecting young women and encouraging them on making informed choices in their lives. My involvement with the YWLP has brought me this far because of my commitment to learn and build my capacity to help young women and people in my community.'
More information
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- Pacific Women Shaping Pacific Development
