African Sisters Education Collaborative (ASEC)

The soil was fertile. A seed was planted. The yield was prodigious.

This is what the African Sisters Education Collaborative (now widely known as ASEC) discovered after taking the courageous and risky step 25 years ago to launch an organization that would provide educational opportunities for Catholic women religious in Africa, and that today is having a gigantic impact across Africa. Passionate about alleviating problems related to profound poverty, lack of education and healthcare, and consequent attendant ills, and seeing African sisters as the instruments of remediation, the leaders of four congregations of religious women in the United States, together with the colleges and universities they sponsor, made the crucial decision to take action.

The sisters in Africa were already engaged in serving the most vulnerable, providing social and spiritual services to the impoverished, neglected and needy in their communities and advocating on their behalf. The problem, however, as they made known to the U.S. sisters who conducted a needs assessment survey, was that they lacked the skills and higher education credentials that would allow them to take their work to a higher level and improve the quality of their services, as well as the technology that would allow them to access the necessary education and to resources that would sustain their work. Their governments moreover, were beginning to require these higher level qualifications for many of their occupations.

The path ASEC needed to take was clear, beginning with technology: teaching technological skills and supplying laptop computers. A decision was made to work primarily in the English-speaking countries of East and West Africa and ASEC invited congregational superiors to come to the U.S. for brainstorming and technology training, gifting each one with a laptop.  The implementation of the Sisters Leadership Development Initiative (SLDI) followed soon afterwards, and ASEC began providing a three-year certificate program in administrative and financial topics. Although that program is now taught by local instructors, I was privileged to teach the administrative component in Uganda, Kenya, and when ASEC expanded its reach, in Zambia and Malawi. It was a great joy to work with such committed and eager students who could see a useful application for virtually every component of the program. Strategic planning would provide direction, focus and accountability. Financial and human resources management would assist them in running effective and efficient organizations, grant writing and networking would position them for effective resource mobilization and expansion of ministries. Servant leadership and delegation skills would increase human capacity for their daily struggle against forces of poverty. Technology skills would assist in openness to change and keep them up to date in the fast-moving world of global development.

The sister participants in the SLDI were most grateful for these programs, but made it clear that, useful as these skills were, the need for university degrees was of paramount importance. A sister in Zambia captured the essence of the problem when she described how difficult it was to have credibility in recruiting and overseeing medical staff, including doctors, in the clinic she headed when she did not have a degree.

Meeting this need, however, was also part of the dream of ASEC’s founders. They saw that sisters in Africa were in the same situation many of them had been in in the 1950’s – struggling to maintain ministries, especially in healthcare and education, without having the education or credentials they needed. Sisters in the U.S. are now highly educated, and in coming together ASEC’s founders wanted to pay that gain forward to the sisters in Africa. Planning was already by this time under way to help sisters access higher education, through diploma, bachelor, master’s and ultimately doctoral degree programs. The Higher Education for Sisters in Africa (HESA) program was just beginning.

I have been involved with ASEC since 2004 and a member of its Board of Directors for 12 years. It has been exciting to watch the growth and stellar achievements over the years of its existence. ASEC now runs programs in ten countries, serving sisters in those and surrounding countries. Over 6,000 sisters have participated in SLDI program activities, and the curriculum is now being taught in French as well as in English. More than 1,200 sisters now have graduated with diplomas and degrees thanks to the HESA program, including almost 800 with bachelor degrees and almost 300 with master’s. Two sisters have completed doctoral degrees.

Sisters are the frontline workforce of the Catholic church, working in the poorest and most rural parts of the world. They serve at the epicenter of global problems that resonate far and wide away – poverty, disease, food insecurity,  climate change, environmental degradation, migration, human trafficking. They work with the most marginalized people in the farthest reaches of their regions where services are minimal and difficult to access. They build and run schools, hospitals and clinics, they advocate for human rights, support gender equality, and devise solutions to reduce migration and trafficking.

Sisters are courageous and resilient, facing situations every day like floods, drought, epidemics, that most of us might run from. They are steadfast and resourceful.

ASEC Alumnae of the SLDI and HESA programs are now in leadership positions in the national and multi-national associations of sisters in Africa, in their congregations and local communities. They are now CEOs of schools, hospitals, clinics and many non-governmental organizations they have themselves founded. They create jobs, win grant awards, and empower women.  Since completing ASEC sponsored programs, they have raised close to $30 million in funding for community sustainability and improvement projects; created almost 5,000 jobs in underserved rural communities; and served almost 2.5 million people in poor, rural communities where help is needed most. Education has been a key factor in these successes, and the impact has been staggering. 

Brighid Blake, MA, LL.D.
ASEC Board Member
Author