NYU is collaborating with the Fundación Mujeres Por África, Banco Santander and the University of Ghana to design a program that promotes and develops leadership skills for Ghanaian women.
NYU’s College of Nursing, Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service and Steinhardt School of Culture, Education and Human Development have joined forces for the Ghana Wins! Project, which offers training and assistance to Ghanaian women on how to address the nation’s health care and education issues. Banco Santander, which is sponsoring this project, will award $500,000 to each school to develop its program.
The College of Nursing will implement the Ghanaian Nurse Leaders Program that will address a fundamental need of the Ghanaian nursing profession. The program will consist of three cohorts of 10 Ghanaian nurses partaking in activities that advance their access to evidence-based science and training in health systems, management and leadership. Each cohort will be assigned a mentor from the College of Nursing and take seminars at NYU Langone Medical Center.
Yvonne Wesley is the co-director for Ghana Wins! and creator of the Leadership Institute for Black Nurses, an annual fellowship that strives to enhance the careers of African
-American nurses and address the disparities in care between African Americans and other groups. Wesley said she plans to use her experience with LIBN to model the new program.
“The philosophy of this program is that leadership can be learned,” Wesley said. “What we have learned from our Leadership Institute for Black Nurses is that, if we can help nurses to think about health care from a leadership position, they’re more likely to initiate projects in their own communities and really go out and make positive changes.”
The Research Center for Leadership in Action at Wagner will conduct a one-year leadership development program. Two cohorts of 15 to 20 female leaders from government and civil service organizations throughout Ghana will identify an organization or community need and design a public service action-learning project to address it. They will spend the following year working to implement their projects, aided by ongoing expert coaching through regular video conferences.
Steinhardt will launch the Ghanaian Institute for the Future of Teaching and Education Women’s Fellowship Program. This program will offer professional development and leadership training to teachers through the Ghanian Ministry of Education, University of Ghana and the University of Education at Winneba. Participating educators from Ghana will identify, develop and implement a project that will enhance Ghana’s quality of education.
“These projects will provide an opportunity for additional Steinhardt faculty and students to engage in distance mentoring as well as on-site support we will be offering in association with out local partners, faculty from the University of Winneba in Ghana,” said Kristie Koenig, the project director of GIFTED.
Ghana Wins! is slated to begin recruitment in 2013.
A version of this article appeared in the Monday, Oct. 8 print edition. Tanay Hudson is a contributing writer. Email her at [email protected].
