Community Engaged Learning: Empowering Women and Youth

The speech highlights the importance of community engaged learning in empowering women and youth. It showcases the positive impact on academic outcomes, leadership skills, and cultural empowerment. The program has helped many students overcome challenges and pursue their dreams.

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Community engaged learning
Name
Institution

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Speech on community engaged learning
Good afternoon to distinguished guests, teachers, staff, parents, students and my dear
friends. I would like to raise the issue of community engaged learning through my speech before
you as well as informing you about the women and youth empowerment programme that has
helped many of us in this society. Currently 187 villages have been incorporated into the
programme. This has been a home to some of us, a place where we feel we belong.
Community engaged learning is very necessary in our society as it gives students
practical chance to study in correct settings and produce skills of community commitment while
dealing with community collaborators to meet important requirements. We have got numerous
benefits including positive impact on academic outcome such as cognitive development,
problem-solving skills and problem analysis. We have also been able to demonstrate complexity
of understanding owing to the education and training we have been going through.
Some of us lacked confidence when we first came here, but with time we have developed
great interpersonal skills which have aided our socialization and communication skills thanks to
our staff and teachers who have relentlessly encouraged us to keep on believing in ourselves. We
have also learnt to appreciate other people’s culture in uniting and discussing our problems, we
are like a family at the trust, a place where you feel at home. We are also exposed to greater
opportunities in the community owing to our interaction with them and our leadership skills have
also improved tremendously.
We always wanted to be part of NCP for a number of reasons including our aim to
promote cultural empowerment in different countries. NCP offers a practical environment for

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learning which enables us to understand the workforce which to me is far much better than
classroom setting, I suppose most of you would agree with me on this. Anyway for a long time
now have had passion to work with this organization given the struggles have gone through in
my life.
We have two cases of some of our members analyzed to help you understand what some
of us go through and what being here means to us. One of the students here, 18 years old lost her
mother leading to her dropping out of school at 10 year grade. She is also the sole breadwinner
of her family of 5 and does all the house chores. When she dropped out of school, all her dreams
were shuttered and subsequently suffered an emotional breakdown, her dreams have come back
to life in this place as she seeks to realize them through her courses and interaction here.
Currently she is pursuing phulkari course and she has completed her rug making course and this
is very encouraging. I challenge those of you who bemoans lack of opportunities to join us
improve our society.
The other case is of one of the students, 15 years old who has completed her rug making
course and currently undergoing the phulkari course. She dropped out of school in her 8th year of
schooling due to financial constraints. She also lost her father and have gone through a lot since
then. Though we have a lot of sad stories about her, today she can smile as a result of being a
student in this organization where her hopes and dreams in life have been born again. A place
where she has learnt to interact with others and gained confidence. She also teaches her mother
some of the skills she learnt at MBCT which shows you how she has progressed positively.
Our engagements includes ice breakers: this was done by the teachers where the students
introduced themselves as the teachers also introduced themselves and engaged in different ice
breakers each day. This enabled the girls to be comfortable and develop a relationship of trust.

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The girls were empowered and their skills acknowledged hence they felt appreciated. There were
also picnics where we collaborated with other groups and had a picnic as this made the girls feel
that the teachers wanted to be their friends. There was also story sharing where the teachers
opened about their lives to show the girls that they share the same difficulties though in different
context.
As result of the engagements the girls have become strong and independent thinkers, we
can also conclude that culture dictates their future and challenges. Currently the girls are happier
and motivated to pursue their goals. This place has been like a home to these girls and most of
them can confess to the same. This girls had completely lost hope in their lives but now their
hopes are back to life.
To ensure that the operations runs smoothly, there have been regular catchups which
allows the girls to be motivated and be valued themselves for their work. There has also been
counselling which have encouraged the girls to share their problems and subsequently improved
their trust in the system. The girls have also benefited from team building where they have
shared their ideas and stories and have been able to build their friendship with others. There has
also been reward system to encourage and motivate the girls and this encourages their peers too.
Rotation has also given the girls the opportunity to get exposed to other opportunity within the
MBCT. The girls have also been allowed to showcase their work through ME WALL and
subsequently empowers the girls to be proud of their work.
Therefore, feel welcomed to join us at any time in this programme that brightens the
future of our youths. This programme has empowered women in our society and no one should
look down upon them or compare them with men. Our girls have been empowered through

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community engaged learning where they are comfortable and happy as you can see. This was a
big day to us and we thank you all for attending.
Thank you.
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