The Sisters Leadership Development Initiative (SLDI) offers Catholic sisters in 10 African countries the opportunity to enhance their leadership competencies and professional skills in the areas of technology, administration, finance, and web design. The SLDI program collaborates with partner consultants, congregational superiors, and national conferences/associations of women religious to develop and deliver month-long workshops, taught over a three-year period. SLDI graduates increase the program’s outreach by mentoring at least three other sisters after their completion of the program.
Since the program’s inception in 2007, SLDI has served 4,413 sisters, empowering them to become more effective in their congregations and apostolates. An additional 2,373 individuals were served through other program activities, such as Superior and Partner Workshops, totaling 6,786 individuals served by SLDI.
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SLDI field trip participants in Malawi
SLDI Phase VI, Year 2, began in April 2023 and concluded in March 2024. In SLDI Phase VI, Year 2, 837 sisters participated in 37 Leadership Workshops; 432 in Administration, 332 in Finance, and 73 in Advanced Web Design. Year 2 workshops focus on building participants' leadership capacities in areas relevant to their ministries. Leadership skills are covered in depth during Years 2 and 3 of the program. The SLDI program also marked the introduction of social entrepreneurship to the Year 2 and Year 3 curriculum. At the start of Year 3, sisters “pitch” their social entrepreneurship ideas using the framework and sales skills they learned in Year 2.
SLDI alumnae have shown incredible levels of success once given the gift of education. Graduates of the program go on to demonstrate positive impact on their communities in tangible and effective ways.
94% of SLDI alumnae use the leadership, administrative, and/or financial skills they gain from SLDI in their ministries.
6.8 million people, mostly in rural areas, are served by SLDI alumnae annually.
29,590+ individuals have been mentored by SLDI alumnae.
SLDI Events & Highlights
SLDI Partners Workshop
The SLDI Partners Workshop was held January 7-11, 2024, in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. More than 60 partners—38 SLDI facilitators and 25 ASEC staff—participated in the workshop designed to facilitate networking, learning, and development for SLDI Phase VII. Notably, facilitators from CORAT Africa and Advisewise engaged participants in a review of the SLDI curriculum for each track as part of a curriculum enhancement project for SLDI Phase VII.
Curriculum Enhancement Project
ASEC continued collaborating with CORAT Africa on a SLDI curriculum enhancement project. The project involves reviewing and reorganizing the curriculum into modules, incorporating social entrepreneurship content, and quantifying the number of hours spent in identified content areas. The purpose of this project is to enhance the SLDI curriculum for Phase VII and provide students with a detailed testimonial of the skills obtained from SLDI.
Field Trips & Graduations
SLDI Phase VI, Year 3, workshops began in April 2024. Workshops will conclude in December 2024 and one graduation will take place per country beginning in August 2024. Throughout the grant year, ASEC is planning a combination of online and onsite workshops and field trips, with in-person graduations. SLDI graduation ceremonies will incorporate a celebration of ASEC at 25 when feasible.
SLDI participants visit the Carmelite Sisters Primary School in Malawi.
Institutional Capacity Building
The Institutional Capacity Building (ICB) project supports congregations and national conferences/associations of religious in strengthening their organizations’ internal systems in areas such as governance, strategic planning, financial or asset management/development, human resource management, leadership/administration, and/or data management. Housed within the SLDI grant, the project grew out of an identified need for congregational and organizational capacity strengthening beyond the level of training individual sisters. The ideology behind ICB is that if systemic improvements become institutional priorities, congregational leaders will attain a greater capacity to improve the internal systems of their organizations. Unlike other ASEC initiatives that aim to improve the capacity of individual sisters, ICB aims to improve the systems the sisters operate within. In the last year, several key milestones were achieved under the ICB project including:
- Completion of the intensive capacity building process with the Association of Women Religious in Malawi (AWRIM) and Association of Religious in Uganda (ARU).
- Facilitation of 8 ICB Congregational Leaders Workshops in SLDI’s countries of operation with the exception of Nigeria and South Sudan.
