By Rimsha Ali Shah
Buzzing with a mix of enthusiasm and uncertainty, twenty girls stood in a circle at the Attock City School playground. As they looked around trying to figure out the meaning behind the circular formation, someone suddenly shouted: “Hey! I am Tooba! And I like to play cricket!” as she mimed a batsman stance.
“What’s your name?” Tooba asked to the girl standing before her. Unsure at first, she then obliged with a response matching Tooba’s, “My name is Sana and I like to read!” Tooba then had the whole group mime reading a book. Smiles of relief broke out as they realized they were breaking the ice; building their confidence and connections with each other.
The first activity of her small grant project ‘Emerging Leaders’ had been a success! Tooba Dawood, an alumna of the Global Undergraduate Semester Exchange Program (UGRAD), could sense the rising excitement of the group as they geared up for the next activity. From October 30-November 2, 2015, around 100 female students collectively from Nobel Grammar Public Secondary School, The Attock City School and Al-Rahman Model Elementary School participated in the workshop to advance their leadership skills.
The project was made possible with the help of a $5,000 grant from the Pakistan-U.S. Alumni Network (PUAN). All alumni of various U.S. government-sponsored exchange programs in Pakistan are eligible to apply for the grant to enable them to give back to their communities.
Leadership Building Exercises Boost Confidence of Students
The leadership building exercises were designed specifically for female students studying in schools in the outskirts of Attock, aimed at instilling confidence in their capabilities and to help them to stand out from the crowd. Tooba explained her motivation behind her project, “Confidence is the need of the hour. The reason behind the lack of leadership quality in the girls studying at these schools is that there is a dearth of confidence and zero knowledge on how they can excel in different fields to make their lives much better.”
To create a parallel narrative, Tooba designed a series of ten activities spread over two sessions with a focus on different aspects of leadership including: confidence-building, critical self-evaluation, communication skills, idea generation and execution, team work, time management, effective resource utilization and presentation skills.
Ibrahim Sayyed, who moderated the “Spaghetti Tower” activity, where the participants constructed a stable tower out of dry spaghetti to hold a marshmallow on top, felt that the day long activities helped greatly improve and hone the participants’ leadership skills. “This was a comparatively difficult activity but we were all amazed at the excellent coordination among the girls. They were all working in groups in sync, focused and committed.”
“I really enjoyed the activity ‘Blind Sheep and the mute Shepherd / Leader of the Herd.’ We were all blindfolded and had to really understand what our leader was saying to make it to the other side of the road. It was very difficult because we never really realized the importance of our sense of sight and we had also not focused much on the importance of listening. But this activity helped me learn that effective leaders are good listeners,” said Aleena, one of the participants from Nobel Grammar Public Secondary School.
Following the certificate distribution ceremony at the end, Tooba felt proud of the group of girls in front of her, the same group who had started off together with zero confidence in their abilities, but now beamed brightly with the confidence and energy essential to conquering their fears.
