Pilot Project the Netherlands

In 2019 We women International will start their first project in the Netherlands for Migrant and Refugee women. Ursula Cats will lead and execute the project.

Women Inner Leadership Coaching

Transforming Trauma into Power

We will work with

• Refugee and migrant women who want to become leaders
• Refugee and migrant women who are studying in university
• Refugee and migrant women who want to empower their communities

The Aim of the Coaching

• Transforming trauma into power
• Leadership skill development

The strength of inner leadership coaching

In 2010 We women started assisting minority refugee women from Myanmar to get into university. The first thing that became apparent was that many women did not have insight into their own skills, strengths and weaknesses and often had a very low self-esteem. From that moment the development of the Leadership Coaching started, which first of all was seeking insight into skills, strengths, past experiences and available knowledge of the women. And at the same time seeking to find what exposure to resources they had. Secondly the coaching was addressing their personal background stories and present situation. Most women had experienced traumatic life events and had to help their families with their daily life survival. The women in our projects all had created a little space for themselves, where they really wanted to grow their skills. However their space was small and they had only little time to act within that space. Therefore it was important to get insight into their daily life struggles, as this helped with defining a realistic future plan in line with the available space they had. A third crucial issue that arose was their cultural prescribed roles as women and the obstacles that came with this. This played a big role in their process towards leadership. Getting insight into their own contextual background as a woman made them aware of their position and how they could transform this for themselves and other women.
Knowing their personal stories, getting insight into traumatic events and becoming aware of their role as women makes it possible to strengthen the women’s transformation process, assisting them into becoming self-confident emerging leaders.

Research in Myanmar, Thailand and the Netherlands has showed us that many refugee and migrant women around the world fled traumatic situations and have huge responsibilities to carry. Inner leadership coaching has been highly valued by the women whom we interviewed. Especially as most women have no access to resources to build their inner leadership capacities and many faced traumatic life experiences and all have faced cultural difficulties through gender inequality. Gender inequality can lead toward a low self-esteem and less self-confidence. This in turn will slow down, discourage, stop or even turn down personal development and inner strengths development. To belief in oneself and to feed inner strengths is necessary to grow into leadership positions

The End Results

• The women have gained self-confidence and can work from their strengths
• The women have build a realistic future plan and can actively take part in the society
• The women are role models in their communities
• The women contribute towards social change in their communities

Pao Hom, We women coaching and scholarship alumni

Alumni Pao Hom was raised by an aunt in Shan State after her parents were forced to flee Myanmar to escape forced labour. With the assistance of We women Pao Hom grew from a motivated youth who worked on many issues into a strong confident and focused woman who has decided to contribute to making a change in the educational system at grassroots and political level: ‘It is crucial for the Burmese educational system to improve its curriculum, and it is my hope to one day work for the Burmese Educational Administrative Department so that I can make changes from within.’ Pao Hom has trained up to 100 teachers in critical thinking skills, that has improved the education of over 700 students from Myanmar. Right now Pao Hom works as an independent consultant with different key stakeholders on the peace process. She has been able to ensure gender inclusion within the process as a whole and brought voices of the grassroots women into the peace talks. She makes an important contribution to build a more sustainable, inclusive and equitable peace process for Myanmar.