It began with a need for an innovative management style and organizational model to enhance female Southeast Asian employees’ professional performance and overall well-being, especially those hampered by outdated social norms and false beliefs about gender roles.

The training does not focus on how to do their job better but on encouraging women to believe in themselves and cultivate independence, self-confidence, decisiveness, and control over their lives.

Women of Asia‘s life-skills training emerged in response to real-life women’s situations and challenges to improve their lives and the organizations they work for.

Its creation began with conversations, consultations, listening to stories, and researching topics related to women’s lives and daily challenges. The survey helped design, test, and introduce optimal organizational practices. The new management style gradually evolved into a comprehensive system using business coaching, training, and mentoring methods spiced with a bit of humane heart.

The visionary behind this initiative, Karl Gart, invested time in recognizing and understanding how the socio-cultural environment conditions women. He discovered that women from specific backgrounds often do not realize they possess general capabilities equal to men. They also hold an acquired belief that exploring and developing their unique personal traits and abilities is wrong. These detrimental cultural and social norms profoundly impact women and their professional performance.

Karl recognized the need to nurture women’s confidence, self-worth, and decisiveness with a management style anticipating social patterns and creating a safe, professional environment for women to thrive.

Experienced as a leader, manager, mentor, educator, and university lecturer, he adjusted the training to serve groups and individuals.

THE NEW MANAGEMENT STYLE SPARKED SIGNIFICANT CHANGE IN WOMEN

They have gained the self-confidence and power to take their fate into their own hands, make decisions about their lives, and take action. They learned to respond to threatening and uncomfortable situations. They not only quickly met but also surpassed professional expectations. This transformation has positively impacted their careers and personal lives, serving as a powerful testament to the method’s effectiveness.

In 2022, Karl Gart adapted his management method to create life-skills training for Bali WISE, an Indonesian women’s empowerment organization that helps young marginalized women break the cycle of poverty through education and training.

ENDLESS INSPIRATION TO RESPOND TO MARGINALIZATION

As Women of Asia, we continuously draw inspiration from the diverse experiences and stories of women from different societal backgrounds to fine-tune our program. Our survey group includes individuals from rural and suburban communities, female workers, professionals, managers, entrepreneurs, artists, politicians, and individuals from UHNWI, as well as noble and royal backgrounds. While each group may face unique challenges within their economic, cultural, and social context, women universally experience discrimination cross-culturally.

Women’s stories that inspire us to constantly improve our life-skills training frequently include:

• Cultural and social expectations
• Gender-biased treatment of women
• High level of women’s dependency
• Discouragement from pursuing education
• Lack of self-confidence
• Encouragement to lower aims and ambitions due to the predefined passive role of women in society and family in accord with an informal rule, “others will take care of you”
• Disapproval of women’s independence
• Discouragement from developing traits necessary for leading an independent, stable life
• Preparation of girls for gender-assigned roles from an early age

The most consistent factor across all social, cultural, economic, and age groups is women’s fear of not meeting family expectations and not making their parents proud.

The many cultural and social norms that are still in place when raising children hurt women’s mental well-being and financial independence. We know young women who, still in the 21st century, attended mandatory girls-only classes in primary schools, where they learned about traditional gender roles such as being a wife, homemaker, and mother. They were taught to be submissive to their future husbands, even in cases of betrayal and abuse.

These classes did not cover topics such as hygiene, family planning, or sexual reproductive health!

Our interviewees shared that boys played games outside the classroom during these lessons.

The traditional norms and expectations place limitations on women’s development and freedom to make even the most fundamental life choices, like choosing a life partner or a career path. Many cannot reach their full potential as they are socially discouraged from taking risks and pursuing opportunities. As a result, many women find it challenging to be self-sufficient and confident, often feeling worthless or insignificant.

Our life-skills training program addresses these and other problems in response to women’s narratives, fears, dreams, and a false belief in a lack of specific abilities to their gender.

Addressing social norms as an issue is challenging and complex. We never insist on or force our training, even though hundreds of women from different countries have approved it.

THE LIFE-SKILLS TRAINING

Women of Asia’s life-skills training was first a management method created to address specific workplace issues and patterns deriving from hurtful social norms and expectations about women in Southeast Asia.

This management approach is based on coaching and mentoring methods, supported by knowledge about social norms and expectations. The method caught the attention of Bali WISE. This women empowerment organization requested that the Women of Asia adapt and turn it into life-skills training for female Bali WISE educational program participants.

Bali WISE is an internationally renowned women empowerment organization. It provides a six-month education and hospitality skills training for marginalized women to help them find safe, quality employment with a fair salary to support their lives and families. Women of Asia designed and started the regular delivery of the life-skills training for Bali WISE students.

Here are the general training panels:

• Self-expression, sharing opinions and personal stories
• Self-confidence, self-value
• Emotions and feelings management
• Mindset
• Assertiveness
• Cross-cultural understanding
• Work ethics
• Looking for work and recognizing safe employment
• Self-learning methods in the lack of financial resources

The training program includes specially designed and adapted exercises and activities, lectures, and discussions; there is time for sharing opinions, thoughts, feelings, and life stories. We also allocate a portion of training time to address our trainees’ common and individual concerns.

Women of Asia is not only dedicated to empowering women but also to supporting organizations, companies, and individuals in creating life-skills training tailored to the specific requirements of youth, women, and diverse groups and teams. Your needs are important to us, and we are committed to making the world a better place by empowering others.

If you have any questions regarding Women of Asia life-skills training or would like to consult on that matter, contact us through our contact page, which you can find at the top of the page in the menu.