This past week, the Global LEAD Team welcomed 101 students from universities to the beautiful city of Cape Town! For the staff, this is our favorite time of the year—the opportunity to impact students’ lives by challenging them to pause, understand their potential as a leader, connect with another culture, serve, and strive to be great stewards of their gifts, time, and passions.
The week began with a city tour, which took students to the V&A Waterfront, Sea Point, Camps Bay, up Signal Hill, through downtown, and past the Parliament building. Students saw how truly eclectic the city is during the tour, and began planning all of the places they wanted to visit during their five weeks here!
That evening we went to Moyo for a welcome dinner and to taste a traditional African cuisine! During dinner, we had our faces painted and were serenaded by African drummers.
Tuesday, we were fortunate to have a historian from the University of the Western Cape join us to discuss the history of Apartheid and the forced removals that occurred. Her wealth of knowledge and passion for this topic provided an incredible introduction of the struggles that South Africans have experienced.
While abroad, we want every student to gain a strong understanding of South Africa. In addition, a key component of Global LEAD is to also leverage this time to understand yourself and your personal leadership style. Each student took the Strengths Finder assessment as a tool for them to discover their top five core strengths. This exercise was not only a great way to learn more about yourself, but also the other students who are on the program. We will be referencing the Strengths Finder throughout the program as we dive deeper into our leadership curriculum.
The week continued with an amazing lecture from Kevin Chaplin, the director of the Amy Biehl Foundation, which runs afterschool and empowerment programs in the townships around Cape Town. Kevin challenged each of us to live fully, embrace others, and always give of ourselves! We were able to get a glimpse of the incredible work his organization is doing during the afternoon tour of their programs. Despite the extreme poverty around us, we saw the rich and invigorating talent of the students in the Amy Biehl programs. As the children danced, sang, and played the drums for us there was an overwhelming sense of amazement of the impact this organization is making in their lives.
We ended the week with a discussion about core values. Before we can lead others, we must understand ourselves. Our values are those ideals that we choose to anchor us throughout our days and should drive and direct our decisions. Following the lecture, we reminded the students that one of Global LEAD’s core values is WOW and adventure, and so as a group (for those who wanted to), we would be hiking Table Mountain! Despite the option to ride the cable car to the top, all 110 students and staff made the long journey up Platteklip Gorge to the top of the mountain. The emotion at the top when everyone had completed the journey was amazing!
We are looking forward to another action packed week. As always, feel free to reach out to us if you have any questions!
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