Katherine Fleming Women’s Leadership Course
Co-hosted between Coady Institute and Organization for Women in Self Employment (WISE) in Ethiopia
June 16 - 20, 2025
Application Deadline: March 18
Addis Ababa, Ethiopia
Women are natural leaders and decision-makers, activists, and cycle-breakers who are claiming their rightful place as leaders addressing persistent and deep-rooted inequalities. Katherine Fleming was one such woman leader. A graduate of St. Francis Xavier University class of 1985. Katie was committed to human rights and defense of those rights on behalf of children everywhere. At the age of 35, while working as a programme officer for the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), she died at home in Tanzania in May 1999.
Classmates and friends of Katherine Fleming ’85 worked with her family members to establish the Katherine Fleming International Development Award at Coady International Institute.
Family and friends created the Katherine Fleming International Development Award in loving memory of her lifetime dedication to supporting the elimination of child poverty in Africa. To mark the 25th anniversary of the first presentation of the award Coady Institute and the Organization for Women in Self Employment (WISE) are excited to continue to honour Katie’s memory and work by offering a course in sub-Saharan Africa in 2025.
This course is grounded in relational practices, providing space for women leaders, both experienced and emerging, to come together and share concepts and tools to enhance upon already trusted leadership capacities.
This 5-day course will guide you to identify and connect with your gifts and strengths, explore feminist movement building, while learning tools and frameworks that prioritize economic agency, justice, and inclusion.
This learning experience is an opportunity to explore the abundance of strengths and gifts you hold as a community leader and build a supportive network with other women leaders with a focus on community–led, community-driven social change.
Facilitators:
Krista Hanscomb, Coady Institute
Veronica Torres, Coady Institute
Genet Ejeta Abomsa, WISE
NOTE: You may need to refresh the application page before entering your information. If you have any issues in applying, please contact coadyadmit@stfx.ca for assistance.
This course is for persons from Sub-Saharan Africa who identify as women.
Benefits and Learning Objectives
After completing this course participants will be able to:
- Explore frameworks, approaches and tools designed to develop and enhance women’s leadership;
- identify practices, values, and actions that can be taken by women leaders and members of a community to support women’s leadership for socio-economic change;
- enhance their leadership development goals including mobilization of social and financial resources;
- develop an action plan for a leadership practice;
- reflect upon lived experiences and leadership practices to identify personal strengths and motivations;
- build a social network with peers;
- develop relational approaches to increase social capital in communities; and
- enhance existing leadership vision and approaches that support and lead to innovation and socio-economic change.
Approach to Teaching and Learning
The richness of participants’ experiences and knowledge, as well as the skills they bring, add to the great potential for learning about leadership. Our understanding of learning focuses on a learner-centred approach to learning-teaching dynamics. Learning is done by the learner, not to or for the learner.
As humans are meaning-making beings, in this program we will collaboratively seek to make meaning of our experiences in leadership and community development at the local/community, regional, and global levels.
The teaching learning dynamic in this course is centred around problem-posing education informed by reflective practice. Practitioners are invited to learn during and from experience, engaging in reflection in and on their own community development and leadership practice. Reflective practice involves asking questions to deepen understanding as well as being open to growth in leadership practice. Drawing from existing perspectives and experiences to engage in reflective practice, critical inquiry, and dialogue, the group will share and learn from each other’s experiences, strengths, assets, and challenges to identify emerging issues and possibilities to support women’s advancement locally and globally with an emphasis on their economic agency.
Fees
Coady Institute ensures that participants working with marginalized communities around the world have access to its courses. This is made possible through the provision of bursaries that are funded by many individual and institutional donors.
Accepted participants to this course will receive a full bursary to cover tuition, accommodation, breakfast, and lunch in Addis Adaba. All travel related expenses including airfare and visa fees, as well as travel cancellation and emergency medical insurance, are the responsibility of the participant. Participants are also responsible for their own dinner (excluding the provided graduation celebration dinner on the last night) and any personal expenses and incidental costs.
Please Note
Please note that Coady Institute does not accept third party applications. Individuals need to submit their application via Coady’s website and should use caution when approached by those offering services to complete the application and admissions process.