 
International
students hone leadership skills
By
ALISON BERT
THE JOURNAL NEWS
(Original publication: July 24, 2003)
PURCHASE — Helene Stephene wants to encourage women in her
native Tanzania to pursue higher education and become leaders.
But, despite her own credentials, she wasn't sure if she was
cut out to be a leader herself.
"I knew I wanted to, but I had no confidence," said
Stephene, 28, an urban and regional planning major in
Tanzania.
Her doubts started to diminish this month when she began
participating in a six-week seminar of the Global Student
Leadership Program at Manhattanville College. She is one of 12
women from Africa, Asia, Europe and North America who are
honing their leadership, communication and English-language
skills while developing projects to implement in their home
communities. And with the Internet technology they are
learning, they will be able to continue sharing their
experiences with past and current program participants.
The program was started four years ago by Michaela Walsh, a
professor and director of women and community leadership at
Manhattanville and founder of Women's World Banking, which
provides financial services to low-income women seeking to
establish businesses.
"We're trying to encourage students to think as individuals
and hang on to their own cultures," Walsh said. "We want them
to go home and become leaders in their own countries, thus
changing the way the world works."
The college provides the venue and instructors. Students,
who stay on campus, are sponsored by organizations including
Carnegie Corp., City University of New York, the United
Nations Development Program and Women's World Banking.
Although some students will remain in the United States to
attend college, including several enrolled at CUNY, all
eventually will return to their countries to implement their
projects.
In class discussions, students are encouraged to speak
honestly about their concerns and aspirations. A few said they
were not sure if they could learn to speak convincingly in
front of an audience or how they would deal with pressure at
home to lead more traditional lives.
Stephane said the process of sharing helped her realize she
could become a leader.
For Irene Kagoya, who heads a complex of residence halls at
Makerere University in Uganda, the class talks changed her
idea of what is required to be a good leader.
"It's not all about struggling for it, but the way you
present yourself and interact with people," said Kagoya, 23, a
law student. "I discovered that everyone has leadership
abilities in him and her."
Kagoya wants to help children realize they can be leaders
and plans to start by talking to students at the primary
school she attended at home.
Lydia Akite, who studies economics at the same university,
also plans to start from her home base by getting companies to
donate computers to her residence hall. Because schools and
colleges lack equipment, she said, students don't get enough
hands-on experience to apply what they learn.
Starting small is key to the program's approach. Students
are taught how to sell their ideas to their own communities.
In one seminar, Susan Stehlik, who helped develop the
program's curriculum, gave tips on how to capture an
audience's attention. To be effective, students should tailor
their talks to their listeners, said Stehlik, the chief
executive officer of Prime Time Ideas in Manhattan.
"In some cultures, like American culture, they want your
big ideas out within 20 seconds," she said, adding that they
would have to figure out what works best for their own
community.
Stehlik gave students four minutes to prepare impromptu
talks about questions posed by classmates. She showed them how
to format their ideas using pictures rather than words, so
they wouldn't get bogged down by a script.
Georgia Fauster, from Gabon in West Africa, said this skill
would be especially helpful. She has traveled extensively with
her father, a U.N. representative, and people often ask her to
talk about issues such as her nation's AIDS epidemic.
In this session, she found herself answering a more
personal question: "What is your favorite color, and why?"
"My favorite color is ash," she said. "It's not a color you
can pinpoint. It's a mix of different things and, for me, it
reflects people, and it reflects souls."
The question was asked by Dora Cudjoe of Ghana, a former
student who returned to share what she learned. Her mission,
after getting a graduate degree at Yale University, is to
reform her nation's curriculum so that children are taught
more about environmental issues during their formative years.
For now, however, her goal is to help other students do
what was so valuable to her — look inside themselves.
"My education is more of grabbing information all the
time," she said. "But this time, you're given the opportunity
to air what you feel about issues. ... If you're aware of
yourself and you know who you are — your faults and good sides
— then you will stand a better chance of sharing."
Send e-mail to Alison Bert
| 
