Learning Lab

WomenStrong’s Learning Lab is a dedicated space for our partner organizations to learn from each other’s expertise and experience, and build a strong community.

We foster peer learning and collaboration.

Our partners have valuable expertise and context-specific knowledge — and many of them share similar priorities for strengthening their organizations. Through in-person retreats, webinars, an online portal, and WhatsApp groups, our partners build community and share their knowledge.

We strengthen community capacity.

When the local women-led organizations in our communities have the tools, resources, and support they need, they can create transformational change for the women and girls they serve. In our Lab, we work together to develop visions and strategies, and then build individual skills and capabilities. As our partners’ individual and organizational capacities increase, so does their effectiveness.

We build collective power.

Our Learning Lab fosters solidarity among our partner organizations so they can leverage their power to drive meaningful change. By facilitating relationships and collaborations among our partner organizations, we’re building an influential community of women-led organizations with a powerful collective agenda.

We amplify our partners’ voices and visibility.

We enable our partners to share their solutions at the global level and advocate for increased investment in advancing gender equity within their respective regions and worldwide. We collaborate in our Lab on the development of events, products, reports, conference presentations, and more.

Our Guiding Principles

Our partnerships are guided by principles of mutual respect, trust, language justice, and equity.

Acknowledge and address the power dynamic.

We acknowledge that there is an inherent power imbalance between donors and grantees, and we actively strive to be aware of how this presents itself and to move power to our partners in all areas of our work. We foster relationships built on trust, where our partners can speak freely and honestly in a safe and brave space.

Value context and culture.

We are here to learn from each other. WomenStrong values and centers ideas and solutions from the communities in which partners work. We are committed to carefully challenging ourselves and each other. We also understand that every language holds equal value. We will operate in English, Spanish, and French, whenever possible.

Let the community lead.

Learning Lab activities are responsive and tailored to their needs. There is no “one size fits all” for capacity-strengthening and knowledge-sharing. We encourage our partners to lead and to be the final decision-makers regarding Lab activities, with WomenStrong supporting as appropriate. In our Lab, partners’ voices, preferences, expertise, and styles are valued and respected.

Foster learning, not accountability.

We encourage partners to focus their efforts on answering questions that are valuable to them, not to WomenStrong. We encourage partners to learn from each other and embrace imperfection. There is tremendous learning in mistakes, failure, and rethinking what works and what does not.

Amplify partners’ voice and visibility.

Throughout a partner’s time with the Learning Lab, the WomenStrong team will seek to amplify and disseminate partners’ local solutions to policymakers, development practitioners, and the wider community. Our team will ensure that partners’ voices, preferences, expertise, and styles are valued and respected.