International Women’s Day 2025 - Fellows to Facilitators

INTERNATIONAL WOMEN’S DAY 2025 - One of the most gratifying aspects of working within international capacity building is promoting gender equality around the world. It is particularly inspiring when female participants later become facilitators in our programs.

Two examples from the ACIAR funded Meryl Williams Fellowship (MWF) alumni who have become facilitators in the UNE International Capacity Building group, are Dr Seeseei Molimau-Samasoni and Dr Daovy Kongmanila.

Dr Seeseei Molimau-Samasoni is a Research Leader at the Scientific Research Organisation of Samoa. She completed the Meryl Williams Fellowship as part of the 2nd cohort in November of 2023. As part of this fellowship opportunity, Seeseei undertook a career placement at ACIAR House where she explored the incongruence between donor and local government initiatives in her home country of Samoa.

After completing the Fellowship, Seeseei ran value-based workshops within her organisation. This experience gave her the confidence and expertise to undertake facilitation workshops in gender equity and social inclusion and diversity. Speaking on the experience she remarks

‘I really enjoyed seeing the groups engage with the activities in the workshop. In particular, seeing the light bulbs go off when they understood and appreciated the material was gratifying.’

Seeseei also attributes much of her recent success to her MWF. She notes that without this opportunity ‘I would not have realised how much I enjoyed facilitating workshops and being a facilitator.’  

Noting that there are not many female facilitators in the Pacific regions Seeseei shares that this can be a barrier to female farmers and vendors from engaging in consultations and in workshops.

‘Having a trained female Pacific facilitator is of great value, I can ensure that I bring the voice of smallholder farmers and women farmers and women vendors to the forefront of discussions where their future and their livelihoods are being explored.’

Dr Daovy Kongmanila, a lecturer and researcher in the Faculty of Agriculture at the National University of Laos is completed the MWF program in the inaugural cohort. Dr Kongmanila has also recently joined the team in facilitating Gender Mainstreaming courses for public servants from Laos.

Daovy notes that before she undertook the MWF she was in a difficult position where she felt that the world was unkind and unfair. After completing the MWF, Daovy wanted to help other women achieve their dreams and aspirations.

‘Before the Meryl Williams Fellowship, I had a dream to help people. I come from the poor family and received a lot of support from other people, scholarship, education. I told myself, I will return this kindness to the next generation. Now I can make this dream real.’
 

Thank you Seeseei and Daovy for all the amazing work you do with UNE’s International Capacity Building programs!