1.- Leadership Lesson: Definition, Objetives and Content

The lesson we propose you constitutes the frame for the empowering and leadership of women from the collective knowledge construction. We are not thinking about some addressees with a determined profile. We have tried to design this lessons in a flexible and open way, that it takes into consideration the fact that teaching is a useful tool for all of us, whether we are leaders in a political party, neighbours in a neighbourhood, county’s councillor, part of the rural community, associates in a non governmental organization o simply, in some time in our life we feel the necessity to share a common place where we can talk to other women.

Anyway, teaching constitutes a very valuable element of personal and collective transformation. When a woman learns to analyse her reality and understands the causes of the discrimination she suffers because of the gender, it is very possible that she might open the door towards the recognition of her strength and capacity, and she starts to be in charge of her life and starts to think in witch project she wants to invest all her energy. A path that will lead her to empowering and therefore to leadership of the project that would transform her environment. We find a clear example of this in women leaders of communities that have made extraordinary social and communitarian transformation process and all around the world.

For this reason we have chosen these lessons that approach different feminist looks about women leadership, that can be used in many different contexts; the contents can be worked from different specialization and deepness levels if we adequate the objectives, the language and the methodology to the necessities, expectations and knowledgement of women that will be a part of the lesson.

At this point it is necessary to remember that women have been organizing themselves in learning groups for decades. Sometimes they have done it in a self taught way in non formal spaces, others in a more specialized way pursuing a concrete aim. Where women have met to interchange our experiences there has been a small revolution. The confidence on colleagues and putting our experiences and perceptions in common has contributed to a self look about reality and the power to define in which way we wanted our lives and the environment we act on, to be.

The collective women’s learning is therefore an instrument of empowering and leadership when a feminist methodology is used, based in the active participation and the recognition of each one of the participants that integrate the group. Although this is a basic guide, we hope to be useful.