Katherine Fleming Leadership Course for Women Leaders
This change provides an opportunity to extend the award’s reach helping more women leaders with an opportunity to learn and grow within their own communities.
The Course focuses on:
- emerging leaders from mid-level civil society organizations that align with co-operative movement, economic empowerment, protecting children, education, creating assets, health, and/or gender equality; and
- improving skills and capabilities required to enact economic agency so that women can build toward sustainable livelihoods.
Coady partnered with the Organization for Women in Self-Employment (WISE) in Ethiopia to host the course’s initial offering. Tsigie Haile, the 2024 Katherine Fleming award recipient and founder of WISE and Coady staff co-designed the course which took place in Addis Abba, Ethiopia June 16 to 20, 2025. Katie’s daughter, Madeline Zutt a Policy and Advocacy Officer at the Dallaire Institute, was present for the initial course.
Our intention is to continue to offer this course in sub-Saharan Africa in partnership with former Katherine Fleming award recipients while still recognizing the participants at StFX Homecoming each year. The course is made possible through the generosity of donors to the Katherine Fleming International Development Award.
“What have we said to the young women particularly, living in this world should not only be for self. We should live and contribute to the betterment of this world for others. When you get older, what you see is what have I done to this world? To others? It’s the most rewarding, a reward that you can get from your efforts if you have contributed to the betterment of the lives of others.”
News
Tsigie Haile (WISE) receives Katherine Fleming International Development Award
Tsigie Haile, founder of Women in Self Employment (WISE), received the Katherine (Katie) Fleming International Development Award at Coady Institute’s StFX Homecoming event. The award is presented annually to an African woman leader in memory of Katie, who dedicated her life’s work to overcoming child poverty in Africa until her death in 1999.
Award Winner’s Work in Uganda Honours Katherine Fleming
As the recipient of the 2019 Katherine Fleming International Development Award Grace Arach was recognized for her work in Uganda as founder of the Foundation for Women Affected by Conflicts (FOWAC). After participating in Coady Institute’s Diploma in Development Leadership program, Grace committed herself to honouring and promoting the legacy of Katherine Fleming.
Graduate Support Networks in Zimbabwe
Saliwe Mutetwa-Zakariya and Yeukai Muzezewa are part of a network of more than 100 Coady graduates in Zimbabwe, and though they live and work on opposite ends of the country, they share a common bond. They are dedicated advocates for women and girls’ empowerment through education, health, and business.