International Centre for Women’s Leadership

INTERNATIONAL CENTRE FOR WOMEN’S LEADERSHIP Coady’s International Centre for Women’s Leadership offers a range of education programs for emerging and established women leaders who are seeking enhanced leadership capacities for transformative social change.

After a pause due to the Covid-19 pandemic the Global Change Leaders program will be returning to campus in 2022. The program is an opportunity for women from developing countries and indigenous communities to build their assets and agency.

Coady has built the program to include mentorship, peer exchange, and global networking. This program is open to those who have demonstrated leadership in a development sector and community for at least five years.

A shorter certificate in Women’s Leadership in Community Development is a unique women-only opportunity to open the minds and hearts of women working in development to ‘be the change’ they want to see in their community or organization.

Coady offers this course on campus, online, and in communities locally and globally.

The Indigenous Women in Community Leadership program is a fully funded education program assisting First Nations, Métis, or Inuit women in Canada to create change in their respective communities. The program includes three weeks of on-site educational programming, mentoring support by established community leaders, a three-month community placement, and project development and delivery.

Coady also offers a fellowship program for women graduates of one or more of our women’s leadership programs, Coady’s Diploma in Development Leadership and other Coady certificate courses. Fellows, along with Coady staff accompaniment, focus on documenting and building knowledge that seeks to understand local learnings of women’s economic and political empowerment and how they intersect, and the innovative strategies used by the women leaders and organizations to support community engagement in ways that can push for women’s inclusion.

Abiodun Omowunmi Essiet Abiodun was one of four Women’s Leadership fellows in 2018. She is a certified mid-wife and public health nurse. She holds a Bachelors degree in Nursing Science and a Masters in Public Health with focus on health promotion and education. Abiodun is the National Director on Women, Gender and Development Affairs of African Youth for Development Commission, AYDEC Nigeria and a resource consultant for European Center for Electoral Support in Nigeria. She has trained more than 40 women in grassroots budget tracking, provided skill acquisition for more than 100 women, and provided free medical outreach for more than 500 people in rural communities.

ENGAGE! Women’s Empowerment and Active Citizenship ENGAGE! is a five-year initiative co-designed by Coady Institute and five partner organizations: • Self Employed Women’s Association (SEWA) in India; • Organization for Women in Self Employment (WISE) in Ethiopia; • Gender Training Institute (GTI) of the Tanzania Gender Networking Programme (TGNP); • Christian Commission for Development (CCDB) in Bangladesh; and • Centre Haïtien du Leadership et de l’Excellence (CLE) in Haiti.

The partners are working to advance gender equality and poverty reduction by enhancing women’s capacity to participate in the social and economic life of their communities. ENGAGE! is applying an asset-based, citizen-led development (ABCD) approach to promote gender-equitable change. This approach ensures that local communities, and in particular women, exercise ownership and control over social and economic development initiatives that respond to their realities and priorities.

Education Programs: For the past 60 years, Coady Institute has been a place where local change leaders from around the world convene to collectively learn and share innovative solutions to the big issues of our day – climate change, rising inequality and anti-democratic populism to name only a few. These progressive leaders are not waiting for national or international agencies to act. Instead, they are developing practical solutions to take action in their communities right now.

We believe in the power of ordinary citizens to do extraordinary things. Coady brings together the best of local innovations from every corner of the world, these motivated change leaders, particularly women, youth, and Indigenous peoples, are at the centre of addressing issues of equity and social justice around the world. Working alongside these change leaders, both on campus and in their home communities, Coady is poised to become a force multiplier for change unconstrained by the artificial barriers between the local and global, North and South.

• Action Research for Citizen-Led Change

• Climate Change Basics for Community Resilience

• Adult Education and Learning for Community Development

• Developmental Evaluation for Social Impact

• Advancing Women’s Conflict Transformation and Peacebuilding for Community Development

• Feminist Leadership For Justice, Equity and Ecology

• Asset-Based and Citizen-Led Development

• Introduction to Social Enterprise

• Building on Abundance in Indigenous Communities

• Research Methods for Social Impact

• Citizen-Led Accountability: Strategies and Practices

• Resources and Tools for Working with Young Women Leaders

• Future of Work and Workers

“My experience at Coady has been eye-opening as a woman leader. I have been inspired to step out and voice issues that affect children and women in my country. Through my learning and experience at Coady, I am a better leader to make a significant and lasting change in my country and beyond.”

- Mary Katunguah Munyao, Director Connect Families Ability, Kenya (Global Change Leaders, 2018)