Excel LDP Module 3

Principals and Social Entrepreneurship

25-27 February 2015

Mr. Oliver Ryan "Birdie" Salva, Co-Founder and Principal of Curiosity Design Research,
conducts a seminar-workshop on "Innovative and Creative Thinking"

SAN FERNANDO, La Union — Last February 25, 2015, the Excel Center for Educational Leadership headed back to the city of San Fernando to conduct the third module of their Leadership Development Program for public school leaders. This three-day program was held at the Community Learning Center, San Fernando Division. 

Social Entrepreneurship was the over-all theme for this module. It aimed to explain and analyze how school heads in public schools can be more efficient and effective using a number of creative strategies. A basic run down of what social entrepreneurship is opened the three-day session, relaying to our 31 Fellows the concept that there are innovative ways to solve a social problem. It was important to note that the purpose of social entrepreneurship is to actually solve problems in society, as opposed to the purpose of a business entrepreneurship which is to earn profit. Once a social problem is recognized, social entrepreneurship must contain four key elements to reach a solution—innovation, sustainability, scalability, and measurability. 

A session on “Innovative and Creative Thinking” proved to be essential, as our participants received a crash course on Design Thinking from Mr. Oliver Ryan “Birdie” Salva, Co-Founder and Principal of Curiosity Design Research. Salva covered the main elements that creative design researchers work with: Empathy, definition, ideate, and prototype. The Fellows were tasked to “redesign the gif-giving experience” as part of their creativity-testing activity following the lecture. 

To better demonstrate what social entrepreneurship is, Mr. Edsel Ramirez, President of the Philippine Toy Library (PTL), a non-governmental organization that transforms idles spaces in barangays into play areas for children to enjoy. This lessens the number of kids roaming around in the street, and gives them better use of their time. Ramirez shared his experience in putting together PTL and reaching that goal to solve a social problem in various communities across the Philippines. 

Excel Executive Director Kai Pastores-Keh presents a Certificate of Appreciation to Mr. Edsel Ramirez,
President of the Philippine Toy Library, for his invaluable talk about Social Entrepreneurship. 

Nadadaan sa Usapan: 

Effective Communication Training for Public School Principals

SAN FERNANDO, La Union -- Excel Center for Educational Leadership (Excel), a nonprofit organization advocating the empowerment of public school principals, conducted the second module of their Leadership Development Program (LDP) pilot run in La Union, entitled “Taking the Leadership Journey: Facilitating and Communicating Self-Sustaining Change” last January 14 to 15, 2015 at the Community Learning Center of the Department of Education (DepEd) City Schools Division of San Fernando. This provided a follow-through to the Personal Leadership lectures and workshop in the first module last October 2014.

Experiential and participatory learning

Based on the Young Leaders in Governance Training Course of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the two-day training seminar and workshop was tailored for the heads of public schools and focused on the integral role of communication in leading a community, particularly in light of various leadership styles and strengths.

Pamela A. Grafilo, Program Associate of the Fostering Democratic Governance Unit of the UNDP-Philippines Country Office (CO) and Galing Pook Foundation Program Officer for Awards and Promotion, facilitated the training and followed an experiential, participatory and interactive methodology where all 31 LDP Fellows participated in situational simulations, role-playing, individual and group reflection sessions, and plenary discussions.

More specifically, the participants were able to provide their own definitions of leadership, and through this they identified that they fall within the range of Dynamic to Democratic on the leadership styles scale, the right side of the continuum. They also built a freestanding tower in groups only out of 30 pieces of letter-sized paper in less than 10 minutes, and demonstrated full cooperation among one another.

Grafilo asked them to pinpoint key leadership attributes, and to name an individual who they admire, respect, and model themselves after. Identifying those people grounded the Fellows in a sense of pragmatism, and this helped them enumerate the top three prevalent leadership challenges that they encounter as school heads and brainstorm how to address them.

Our Marketing and Development Officer Lauren Pastores wrote an article about the first module of the Leadership Development Program, and it was published on ABS-CBNNews.com!

Check out the full story here:

http://www.abs-cbnnews.com/blogs/opinions/11/15/14/excel-better-principals-better-schools

Excel Educakes was featured in yesterday's issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer! We are accepting orders only until December 5, 2014 (Friday), so hurry and place your orders now!

Click to order: bit.ly/IWantEducakes