Mitrataa is excited to announce the International Award (Duke of Edinburgh's Award) is joining our projects in Nepal!

When Nimu and I recently attended our Award Leader training in Kathmandu to allow Mitrataa to offer the International Award (known as the Duke of Edinburgh’s Award in some countries), Rob Oliphant opened the training with his reason for believing in the Award as a tool for empowering young people – because it has all the ingredients required to develop resilience. I almost jumped out of my seat with a shout of “Yes!” That’s exactly why we are so excited about the International Award as a tool for working with the amazing young women we support. Thanks to Tina and CHANCE for bringing Rob to Nepal and supporting the development of the Award here.

I completed my Gold Award when I was at school, resulting in so many opportunities for me. Here are just some of the reasons I am so excited about the opportunity to offer the International Award through Mitrataa:

1)    Strengths and passions – This is what Mitrataa’s work is all based in – building on strengths and passions to inspire people to achieve their dreams. The match is perfect.

2)    Networking – The opportunity for the girls to develop their networks and cheer squads of people who believe in them and can help them achieve their dreams in future.

3)    Resilience – As Rob noted, the research shows a number of core elements to develop resilience. The chart below showcases some of the overlapping elements.

 

Click on the image to enlarge it.

4)    Level playing field – I love that it creates a level playing field between the girls we work with and young people all over the world. No matter who is doing the award or where they are doing it, the steps and the resulting recognition are the same! That gives the girls so much courage and motivation to achieve their dreams. One of the common misperceptions we see amongst Nepalis is the “we are a poor nation who needs lots of help” mentality. Wrong story, we tell them! Nepal is an amazing country with lots of wonderful natural resources, a great culture, and fantastic people. The International Award helps them to believe that they are equally amazing as many other countries!

5)    International recognition – Not only do they learn a lot, have a lot of fun and make new friends doing it, they will also obtain an internationally recognised certificate which will give them an advantage when they are applying for college, jobs etc in future.

6)    Fun! – They get to spend time with like-minded people, doing things they love and having fun!  

This week, we had a group of girls from St Catherine’s in Sydney working with our Dream Centre girls. I asked some of the visitors to help us launch the International Award with our initial group – hearing from girls their age from Australia who are also doing the Award meant so much to them. Thanks to Sarah Hatch (who has done her Gold Award) and her students for taking time out to do this. There was a definite buzz in the air as the girls brainstormed what they would do for each of their elements. (Thanks to Rob for the activity of brainstorming A-Z for the skills and physical recreation parts. The kids love that!).


Bikarna, Nimu and Khil, our Award Team

The initial group of 15 girls will be mentored by Nimu, who will be supporting the group as her Service element for her Gold Award, Khil, one of our senior tutors who will also be doing his Gold Award and Bikarna, our soccer coach and ECA co-ordinator. We have already had requests from our other partner organisations in Nepal to offer the Award to their participants too.

We are so excited about offering the International Award in Nepal. It has so much potential and we are proud that after such a long time planning, we are able to offer it.



Our first International Award participants!