2007 Arabic eCourse with participants from Algeria, Egypt, Iraq, Lebanon, and Palestine

WLP Lebanon/Collective for Research and Training on Development.Action (CRTD.A), in cooperation with Women’s Learning Partnership (WLP) International, is conducting an online distance learning course (eCourse) for 25 women from Algeria, Egypt, Iraq, Lebanon, and Palestine from September 3 through November 3, 2007. The course is designed to develop inclusive and participatory leadership skills, encourage dialogue on rights, and facilitate cooperation for gender-equitable change initiatives.

The eCourse focuses on five themes from WLP’s seminal work, Leading to Choices: A Leadership Training Handbook for Women: developing participatory and personal leadership skills; communicating persuasively; creating a shared vision; and mobilizing resources. Over the ten-week period, participants will complete reading and writing assignments and participate in online discussions and group activities.

During online discussions, participants will explore the qualities of an effective leader, describe experiences in which they personally tackled a challenge, discuss challenges that they would like to make a contribution toward changing, and develop their vision for creating change while engaging other participants. The course takes readings from Leading to Choices and supplements them with additional texts such as Keshavan Nair’s A Higher Standard of Leadership: Lessons from the Life of Gandhi. CRTD-A and WLP are conducting the eCourse, which is being facilitated by three women’s rights activists from Egypt and Lebanon.

WLP has conducted four eCourses in the past in three languages: Arabic, English, and Persian. Participants include women whose ability to attend face-to-face workshops is constrained by security considerations, socio-cultural factors, or long distances. eCourses enable participants from different towns, countries, ethnic groups, classes, and generations to learn together, as long as they share a common language and internet access.

You can read more about WLP's eCourses and use of ICTs to empower women on our ICT Capacity Building Program page.