Wedu

🌟 Celebrating 10 Years of YSEALI Women’s Leadership Academy with 10 outstanding alumnae! Meet Pen Bopha from Cambodia, a graduate of #YSEALIWLA 2015 and a nominee for the inaugural YSEALI Women Leaders Award for Catalyzing Impact. 💸 Bopha has dedicated over 15 years to inspiring and training women as a motivational speaker and 5 years as a financial trainer. Her unwavering belief in the power of leadership, management, and financial skills has driven her to equip women with the skills needed to take control of their lives and realize their full potential. Bopha's in-person trainings have impacted over 20,000 women in Cambodia! She truly embodies her life mission and tagline: "Life Value Added" The indomitable Bopha shows no signs of stopping. She has also produced over 100 motivational videos on her YouTube and Facebook show, “Life-Talk with PEN Bopha,” where 50,000+ followers, many of whom are women, listen to her stories about life and work. 👉 Subscribe and support her YouTube channel here: https://lnkd.in/daQQhqjw #YSEALI10 #YSEALIWomen

#Throwback to the 10th U.S.-ASEAN Women's Leadership Academy for YSEALI in Manila 🇵🇭! Last April, 59 inspiring young women leaders in food security came together to immerse themselves in learning about building and sustaining their leadership and food systems. Our key takeaways: 🌾 Southeast Asia is crucial to meeting the rising global demand for food. Women are already and must continue to be part of the solution. 🤝 Community makes change possible. We do our best when we are loved and cared for by fellow leaders. 🌟 Food systems thrive when women leaders thrive. Massive thank you’s to our partners, Young Southeast Asian Leaders Initiative (YSEALI), AGREA Foundation, and Feminist Food Journal for making this possible. Watch our workshop highlights video below! #YSEALI10 🎈 #WomenFeedTheFuture

🌟 Celebrating 10 Years of YSEALI Women’s Leadership Academy with 10 outstanding alumnae! Meet Alvona Loh Zi Hui from Singapore, a graduate of #YSEALIWLA 2020 and a nominee for the inaugural YSEALI Women Leaders Award for Catalyzing Impact. As a young doctor, Alvona is deeply committed to enhancing the lives of women – from running the initiative WEquality to reduce the stigma against women with mental disorders to writing articles on women’s health. In 2022, she took her passion for uplifting women leaders one step further as the lead of the YSEALI Women Alumni Network. She spearheaded the Wonder Women Series so that other women in the YSEALI community could learn from and be inspired by other women in the world. 💌 Alvona wants to continue “paying it forward” and hopes to take a mentoring role in the next decade, helping even more women become leaders. Her impact is truly catalytic! #YSEALI10 #YSEALIWomen

❗ BREAKING NEWS: Roughly  ⅗ of countries around the world do not have women in high office❗ In the past 50 years, only 47.2% of 146 economies tracked by the Global Gender Gap Index have seen women in top political roles. Among the 195 countries in the world, 49 have not provided data , bringing the total number of countries who cannot account for women in political leadership positions to 126. Despite South Asia being tied at third place with North America in terms of political empowerment, Nepal was the sole country that has surpassed the global average of ministerial representation for women. Trailblazers like Vigdís Finnbogadóttir have served over 15 years in governance yet the recent departures of Jacinda Ardern (NZ), Sanna Marin (FIN), and Nicola Sturgeon (SCT) due to burnout signal the urgent need for leadership that is rooted in principles of care, respect, and  justice. These are the values that we honoured at the inaugural Wedu Women's Leadership Awards (https://bit.ly/WLAWinners). With these awards, we aim to uplift purposeful women who continue to show up with courage and actively build the feminist future we envision. It is not enough to celebrate these achievements, we must collectively act and push for gender parity in decision-making spaces. Source: Global Gender Gap Report 2024 – The World Economic Forum #WeduAwards #GenderParity #WomenLeadership

Ready to spark your public speaking journey? 🎤 Public Speaking is a crucial leadership skill. 🔍 Great speakers are clear in their message, often engage their audience, and employ effective body language and vocal variety. 🔄 Enhance your skills by embracing feedback with the sandwich method — one positive aspect of the speech, one constructive one, then something affirming! These are just a few of the key takeaways from our August Peer Learning Circle.✨🚀 Mohamed Haniffa Fathima Hasna, a Rising Star Ambassador from Sri Lanka, led this month’s session on mastering public speaking through her session titled Public Speaking: Speak to Spark. Our Peer Learning Circles are spaces led by Rising Stars Ambassadors to support Wedu community members in expanding their skills and knowledge on specific topics related to leadership. Want to spark your public speaking journey? Join the Wedu community to be able to partake in our community offers. Visit our website to learn more! #WomenLeaders #WeduCommunity

Ready to spark your public speaking journey? 🎤 Public Speaking is a crucial leadership skill. 🔍 Great speakers are clear in their message, often engage their audience, and employ effective body language and vocal variety. 🔄 Enhance your skills by embracing feedback with the sandwich method — one positive aspect of the speech, one constructive one, then something affirming! These are just a few of the key takeaways from our August Peer Learning Circle.✨🚀 Mohamed Haniffa Fathima Hasna, a Rising Star Ambassador from Sri Lanka, led this month’s session on mastering public speaking through her session titled Public Speaking: Speak to Spark. Our Peer Learning Circles are spaces led by Rising Stars Ambassadors to support Wedu community members in expanding their skills and knowledge on specific topics related to leadership. Want to spark your public speaking journey? Join the Wedu community to be able to partake in our community offers. Visit our website to learn more! #WomenLeaders #WeduCommunity

The task of closing the gender leadership gap relies on representation, a supportive community, and resources for development. 🤝 Having a role model, who represents and showcases the many ways women lead, is essential to changing inequalities in society.  At the recently concluded inaugural Wedu Women's Leadership Awards (https://bit.ly/WLAWinners), we honoured the remarkable women who embody the values that help shape the feminist future we envision. 🤩 Who are the women who have inspired you? Share this post to spotlight a woman who has made a significant impact in your life and share her story with us. Let’s keep the celebration going! 🙌 #WeduAwards  #WomenInLeadership

🌟 Celebrating 10 Years of YSEALI Women’s Leadership Academy with 10 outstanding alumnae! Meet Bunthicha Larlarb from Thailand, a graduate of #YSEALIWLA 2020 and a nominee for the inaugural YSEALI Women Leaders Award for Pioneering Impact. ♻️ Bunthicha works at the intersection of health and sustainability. As a medical technologist, she uses data to lead initiatives and partnerships that reduce plastic medical waste in inclusive ways. Her projects have successfully impacted over 100+ young people across Southeast Asia. One of her most impactful initiatives has been training young people in Chiang Mai, Thailand to use the Hugsa board game, an environmental educational tool that educates indigenous groups about waste issue. The YSEALI alumna who nominated Bunthicha emphasises how transformative her innovative approaches have been, “She engaged us to address the plastic and climate health crises collaboratively. Bunthicha’s novel and impactful ideas have created a lasting impact for both her community and the region.” Truly inspiring! #YSEALI10 #YSEALIWomen

Strong women inspire strong girls. 💪 Our Rising Star, Sin Kunthea, is one such leader helping more girls and women take charge of their futures. Over her seven-year-long career as a social worker, she has met many girls and women who’ve survived trafficking, abuse, and other exploitative conditions. Sin has seen firsthand the challenges girls and women face in accessing education, jobs, and other opportunities. She is determined to make a difference in their lives and help them reach their dreams. Through her counselling on career pathways and learning entrepreneurial skills, she has helped women secure jobs at and set up salons, tailoring, and other enterprises. Being somebody’s support system is not an easy task. But Sin perseveres. “I always encourage myself that working with those girls is not easy because their life has a lot of problems. Although I face challenges and feel down at work sometimes, I tell myself that I am not giving up on my mission to help them,” she told us in writing. The mentorship and support Sin receives from Wedu, through her peers, mentors, and the wider Wedu community, help her stay focused on her goals. After joining Wedu, she observed a remarkable change in herself. She added, “I have found that as a woman, I can walk on my dream path and be successful.” Now, as a Rising Star Ambassador at Wedu, Sin makes sure more women learn about and access Wedu’s leadership development programmes. She hopes to inspire more of them to overcome restrictive social norms that keep them from growing personally and professionally. “I want to see every woman in Cambodia work their dream job and have the financial power, so they become decision-makers for their family and society,” added Sin. Professionally, as the Government Liaison Officer at the M’lup Russey Organization, she works with government stakeholders to create, strengthen, and implement child protection policies in Cambodia so every child has a safe and nourishing environment to grow and thrive. We're grateful to have partners like Cambodia's Ministry of Women's Affairs for nurturing the ambitions of inspiring women leaders like Sin. 🌻

📊 2024 Global Gender Gap Report: 134 years until gender parity! 👀 The latest data from the World Economic Forum shows the global gender gap closing slightly to 68.6%. Leading the charge are Iceland, Finland, Norway, New Zealand, and Sweden. But the journey is far from over, especially in Asia. Here are key takeaways from the report: 🌏Southeast Asia: Strong educational attainment (95.1%) contrasts with persistent gaps in political empowerment (14.5%). 🌏South Asia: Significant gender imbalances in economic participation (38.8%) and political representation (26%) remain a concern. Despite a 0.1% improvement, we still have a long way to go. To drive meaningful change, the focus should be on narrowing economic disparities, improving health outcomes, and increasing political representation for all. We are taking notes! Source: Global Gender Gap Report 2024 - The World Economic Forum