September 28, 2014 was my first training workshop facilitation since I started my Global Health Corps fellowship. I had been preparing for two months for this moment, and was nervous as I looked out into the crowd of faces before me, many of whom were much older than me. I had been tasked with training a team of 31 community-based leaders on personal and small business management. Standing before the group, I asked myself if the group would listen to what I had to say, despite my age.
Among other goals of the trainings, was to empower these community leaders in vision development so that they are able to exercise their community leadership effectively. I started my session by asking what the expectations of the audience were. Anyone who has facilitated a group activity can understand the feelings that answers like” I don’t expect much, because I am old enough to have any vision” or “I have a job, wife and about 5 children, that’s all the vision I had, nothing else” can have on both the rest of the audience and even the facilitator.
These answers gave me two feelings. First, I felt concerned that those who were supposed to lead others didn’t have visions for their own lives. Secondly, I was worried and wondered if the session would be interesting and meaningful for these people.
Then, we entered into the bulk of the training, put it into Burundian context, and I mixed the modules principles with the story of my personal life. I shared with the participants the long journey of my life from my home village to the capital, Bujumbura, from rural primary school to my short stay at Yale University in the US to how I received the opportunity to a part of the highly competitive GHC fellowship just because of the power of my vision.
My story inspired others. At the end of the training session, all the participants including those who thought they were too old to have any new visions were able to set their personal and professional goals.
This single experience gave me energy and gave me more reasons to love my work, which allows me to connect my past to my present and gives me a vision of my future. I love what I do because it makes me understand that it is all of my ups and downs, my success and failures, my weaknesses and strengths that have made me who I am. I am passionate about my work, because it is challenging but transformative. Sometimes it is hard but I know that it is always possible and worthy of the effort needed to realize my vision.