EXCHANGE: When giving and receiving become one truth
To give and to receive are one in truth. I will receive what I am giving now.
-A Course in Miracles
GIVING
If you’ve followed Glow Effect over the past couple years, you’ve seen us partner 15 women from the United States, United Kingdom, and Australia with 15 rising leaders in Kasaali, Uganda. Together, we created The Glow Effect Center for Women & Girls, which now houses the training of over 50 women, and excels the growth of their cooperative.
We call this program, EXCHANGE. (Formerly “The Glow Exchange.” See a video of the experience HERE).
By experiencing resourcefulness and value — not just being given resources — all of us grew our leadership. From every walk of life, rich to poor, educated to uneducated, we shared our stories of suppression, marginalization, and subjugation, and the courage each of found through it all.
We not only survived the challenges of building a learning center in rural Uganda; we experienced ourselves, some of us for the first time, as leaders. The “Exchange” concept went beyond the giving of charity, but the receiving of growth and the giving of growth right back, so giving and receiving became one truth.
We saw the ripple effect in our communities. Our spouses and partners, children, parents, co-workers, fitness communities, neighbors, town newpapers, elementary school teachers and so on contributed their participation, which shifted how we see women, leadership and growth globally.
RECEIVING
With the success of the program, we asked, “How can we get more people to grow cross-culturally?”
Perhaps you’ve heard of our Give Growth events (previously “EmpowHER”)? You may know that we shake up the traditional speaker panels and instead Featured Leaders facilitate roundtable discussions, personalized for attendees.
What you may not know is that during dinner, we watch a short conversation with our rural partner leaders, and attendees contribute to the conversation.
As a result of weaving this global conversation into personal growth, attendees challenge their relationships with the world. Clients, managers, families, and friends all reported a change.
Jackline and the Glow Effect Center team are growing too. From stepping into their leadership, Center members are earning enough income to send their children to school, as well as buy more supplies for the Center. They just bought a second sewing machine! As a generous contribution from the Global Cold Chain Alliance, they have a new water tank and a new low cost, underground cooling system to grow organic food for their community.
In 2017, with our expanded understanding of exchange, we explored how we can bring more of this giving of growth into the world. We attempted to partner with groups in Mexico and Peru, but the plans fell through. And that’s when we found our new partner: READ (Rural Education and Development) Global.
READ Global is a non-profit organization with over 100 community library and resource centers (READ Centers) in rural Asia. They offer programs in financial literacy, dignified work opportunities and leadership development. With 26 years of rural development experience, they’ve excelled in creating profound community impact and scaling it.
TRUTH
Over the next year, the Glow Effect aims to co-create a new women’s empowerment and leadership program with women change-makers from READ’s network of centers across Nepal. When a corporate leadership team signs up for our new team program, IGNITE, they will virtually meet with leaders in rural Nepal to grow their leadership.
Imagine being in your office and spending an hour with leaders in rural developing communities… How would that change your day?
In Fall 2018, we’ll launch our EXCHANGE program, which will now be part of our individual curriculum. Once glow-getters complete the ASPIRE and LEAD programs, they become part of the Glow Team. EXCHANGE partners these glow-getters with rural Nepal leaders to further hone in on our global impact goals. The service-travel program culminates with a 10-day trip to rural Nepal for a co-led Give Growth intensive.
It’s easy to feel our work isn’t moving the needle. Five years ago, I was a Chicago family law attorney burnt out and in search of how to make an impact on the world.
Business professionals, life coaches and therapists told me to love myself more, find work that feels good, ask for more money, and so on. Nothing supported my impact-making goals.
I began studying how humans across the globe are most significantly progressing their communities through social entrepreneurship, culture anthropology, international development, and personal growth.
I’ve had the privilege of working with socially-innovative leaders from the rural lands of Uganda to the boardrooms of Wells Fargo, only to discover that humans everywhere are craving deeper change in their organizations, communities and beyond.
Indeed, this is never-ending, multi-layered process, but there are some foundational steps to discovering how to make an impact with your current resources.
Join me, Saren, in April 2018 for “3 Foundational Steps to Discovering How You’re Meant to Help People,” a one-of-a-kind training where you will learn:
- How to identify your unique genius and turn it into value for others;
- Build an action plan for bringing that to life through a community project or social business initiative,
- And everything you need to make a tangible impact on the lives of others!
- Plus, learn how to become eligible for our 2019 EXCHANGE team to work with rising leaders in Nepal!
Looking forward to meeting you on the training!
Love + glow,
Saren