Inside Shasha: Learning to Play our Part
February 2022
Dear Reader,
Once again we find ourselves at the end of such an eventful month, February is a month where many across the world celebrate love and togetherness. Little did we know that the world would find itself at a point of anxiety and uncertainty. I am sure by now news regarding the events taking place in Ukraine has reached you. The current instability in Ukraine will undoubtedly impact the futures of young people in the country, who had already lost 2 years of their normal lives to the COVID-19 pandemic. This has also led me and the team at Shasha to pause and reflect on the future that we aspire for our scholars and the type of leaders we are developing through the Bridge program.
For so long, I have personally felt that society has been let down by its leaders, but I have also started to think about the role education plays in building a sense of peace and cooperation among people. Are our schools churning out machines that are unable to exercise empathy? Or is it just human nature that prevents us from seeking peaceful and prosperous ends for everyone? This coming month of March, we have challenged our scholars to reflect on the following prompt, “what am I doing in my capacity to make my life and the lives of those around me happier and prosperous?” We’d also love to share this reflection prompt with you.
This February, we welcomed an additional 50 scholars to our program. This brings us only 100 scholars away from the goal we set together in December of 2021, which was aimed at supporting 200 young women with soft skills. Access to these applications has been majorly driven by our relationships with Uncommon.org, USAP Community School, and SOS Children’s Village Burundi. We also appreciate the support of everyone that joined as mentors and guest speakers, we are always looking to connect and expose our scholars to role models in our network. If you have an hour to spare once a month, do let us know and we will slot you in for a guest speaker session.
I wish you all the best in the upcoming month of March, may your pursuits and exploits be fruitful and fulfilling.
Best regards,
Farai Munjoma
Founder & CEO
Get a sneak peak into one of our Blue Sky thinking sessions with Shasha scholars
This lesson is done at the end of our Self Leadership module, where we teach about VIPS (Values, Interests, Personalities and Strengths). We encourage our scholars to imagine the most positive future possible for them to work towards. It remains one of the most popular session across most cohorts as it exercises our young people’s capacity to dream and imagine a world of possibilities.
Help us find our next cohort of young leaders
