Women in Iran Develop Participatory Leadership Skills in eLearning Course

WLP implemented an eight-week Persian online distance learning course on developing participatory leadership skills for women’s rights activists in Iran from January 3 - March 7, 2005. This was WLP’s first full-length online course conducted in Persian. WLP has previously conducted courses in English and is now testing a prototype Arabic course.

Eight women based in Iran participated, including heads of women’s organizations, educators, and experienced trainers. They participated despite a climate of government crackdown and imprisonment of internet activists and bloggers.

WLP’s Persian edition of the leadership curriculum Leading to Choices: A Leadership Training Handbook for Women served as the primary text for lessons and group activities in the eLearning course. WLP worked with course facilitators to adapt the curriculum to promote dynamic and interactive learning. Course sessions focused on five primary areas of leadership learning: exploring the concept of participatory leadership and ethics of effective leadership, examining personal leadership styles, formulating a shared vision, communicating persuasively, and mobilizing resources for an effective advocacy plan. The participants communicated with one another through the course website, discussion boards, email, and chat rooms.

What emerged from the course discussions and activities was a collective concern and commitment for the restoration of the rights and freedoms of Iranian women by preparing women in their communities to realize their potential and participate equally in society. In an activity on developing a group vision, each working group formulated a statement of purpose identifying changes they wanted to effect in their society. In the first group participants wrote, “We seek to change the condition of women through raising women’s awareness of their capacity to be leaders.” The second group proposed a more specific vision stating, “We want to address the extreme difficulty that women have been facing in the employment market in Iran over the last decade by creating opportunities and conditions to better facilitate their access to jobs.” The groups then worked together to develop concrete strategies for implementing their visions.

Participants found the e-course environment to be a new and exciting way to learn from and work with other activists and professionals. At the completion of the course, participants expressed to one another their wish to continue to stay in touch, so that with each other’s support and cooperation they can work together to improve the lives of women in Iran.