A message from Maurita, 1 November 2011:
'What a pleasure it is to be here at the World Innovation Summit for Education, in Doha, Qatar for the second year in a row. I am one of 1200 delegates covering 120 countries, here to share good practises that will make a meaningful impact on the global education crisis.
This year, as an invited guest at the event, Shine has been featured in a beautiful book published by the Summit and the Qatar Foundation with photographs of our Observatory Junior School Shine Centre. We have also been featured on huge presentation slides around the Summit.
On the first morning, we kicked off with an opening plenary session: 'Changing Societies, Changing Education.' This was followed by a debate on 'Rethinking Education Development.'
My favourite session of the day was 'Developing New Approaches to Leadership.' With the Arab Spring still a very strong memory, it is obvious that we need to be connected with people and engage with all channels of communication, otherwise we lose touch with what everyone is thinking and feeling; We need a collective vision to work towards.
A good leader is someone who can recognise the strength of someone else and help them to unleash it. The talk focused on the importance of valuing the new leadership models that are rising in the developing world. Equal Education shows such strong and integral leadership. They have a clear vision and the courage to move forward. It is important that Shine continues to work with them, helping Equal Education move closer to their vision.
