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| afghanistan | brazil | cameroon | egypt | india | indonesia | iran | jordan | lebanon | |
| malaysia | mauritania | morocco | nicaragua | nigeria | palestine | turkey | uzbekistan | zimbabwe |
English
YWLP: Young Women's Learning Partnership
| At a Glance |
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% of population under 25:Afghanistan: 66.6% |
WLP’s Young Women’s Learning Partnership (YWLP) initiative focuses on developing the leadership capacities of young women and girls so that they are equipped with the skills necessary to build just and peaceful societies, to develop collective solutions to the challenges they face in their communities, and to contribute to the women’s movement.
Currently, approximately half of the world’s population is under 25. In many Arab countries, youth under the age of 20 account for one third of the population. Young women have an instrumental role in shaping the futures of their societies, and have much to contribute. YWLP seeks to mentor and train young women leaders to advocate for themselves and their futures, as well as to transform intergenerational relations in order to augment the voices and contributions of young women.
The initiative focuses on engaging young women and girls in a leadership learning process that is participatory, inclusive, and respectful of diversity. WLP’s Leading to Choices: A Leadership Training Handbook for Women, which reflects this ethic of leadership, is currently being adapted for young women and girls between the ages of 13-25 in cooperation with partners in Jordan and Bahrain.
Training workshops based on these manuals are engaging the youth to create a shared vision, build consensus, strengthen their communication skills, and create action plans to achieve common goals. The manual case studies include highly interactive exercises.
“We have young women who, before now, didn’t believe in themselves; they didn’t believe in their capabilities. But this program is really turning things around. We have young women who really, really want to make a difference in the lives of their communities.”
- Bunmi Dipo-Salami
WLP Nigeria/BAOBAB for Women’s Human Rights
YWLP Profile: Young Woman Entrepreneur Builds Own Business Selling Eco-Friendly Laundry Soap
As part of our new Young Women's Learning Partnership program (YWLP), WLP will be profiling exceptional young women leaders. This month we spoke with Maggie Dawson, founder of Maggie's Pure Land Products. At the age of 29 Maggie is the head of a successful company that sells the dried fruit from the Chinese Soapberry tree as a natural, environmentally friendly alternative to laundry detergent.
Maggie first learned about the dried soap nuts when she was visiting a friend in Europe. Upon her return to the US, she tried to find and order them online. After doing extensive research on soap nuts, learning how they have been used for thousands of years, she teamed up with an experienced business partner who helped her locate suppliers of the soap nuts in Indonesia. She traveled there to meet with the suppliers, and while she was there met a woman artist, Ni Made Sriasih, in Bali who painted the cover for the soap nut box. She began contacting local stores and soon the soap nut packets were featured in nearly 800 natural food stores in the US and Canada.
( categories:
YWLP: Young Women's Learning Partnership | Issue 19 (Winter/Spring 2008) )
