A few weeks ago, we were fortunate to partner Gardens for Health International, an organization that works to provide lasting agricultural solutions to chronic childhood malnutrition. Resonate led a training on storytelling at their farm for new Field Educators. One of them, Candide, decided to share both her own story, and what the day meant to her.

It was not until recently that I realized how storytelling is a key component in the health sector. On a beautiful sunny Wednesday morning, Solange, Ayla and I rode on this long dusty road towards Ndera, a small town outside Kigali city; I didn’t know what to expect.

Workshops in the Girl Hub Rwanda offices are always vibrant and beautiful. The brightly colored walls and kitenge-covered chairs create a vivid canvass. The graduating class of Ni Nyampinga Ambassadors arrived, representing every district in Rwanda and dressed in their best for a day of training in Kigali, and the room filled with bright patterns and colors.

I can hardly believe it, but today marks ONE YEAR since I first chose a name, a website, and took the first steps toward making the dream of Resonate a reality. Of course it wasn’t until five months later that we began implementing in Rwanda, but there was a lot of time, thought, work, and love that went in to making that happen. You are the people who have been with me from the beginning, so I want to celebrate with you.

When I look back at my school life trying to pick out that exceptional teacher that stood out from the rest, only one name comes to mind: Caroline. She was my senior four and five French teacher and there were three things I admired about her. First was how she dressed elegantly and always matched her outfits with her purses and accessories. Second was the way she carried herself with grace and always flashed her beautiful smile like there was nothing else in the world that mattered. And third was how she articulated each word with precision and taught us how to write poetry. I tried to keep her in mind as I got ready for my week of training at the Akilah Institute for Women.

Friday evening at 6pm is usually when I am headed home to set down my bag and collapse after a long week of work – a feeling that I imagine is shared by many people. So I was a bit nervous about maintaining the attention and interest of the eclectic group that gathered at the offices of FATE Consulting for an Introduction to Storytelling for Leadership workshop this past Friday.

In the elections in September of 2013, Rwanda once again voted in a majority of women to parliament. With women holding 64% of seats, that makes the percentage of female parliamentarians greater than in any other country in the world. Rwanda’s government promotes women’s empowerment, and has even created a Ministry of Gender and Family Promotion to focus on these issues specifically.

As I write this, in the other room a few friends are devising a way to cook two turkeys for our Thanksgiving dinner (brought in a cold carry-on by one of their parents who flew in yesterday). The power has been out for about 6 hours now, and I think the game plan is to put them in big pots over an open fire. I have no doubt that it will be a Thanksgiving to remember.

I arrived at the Girl Hub offices on a clear Tuesday morning and began to get myself situated in the bright yellow room where I would spend the next few days working with the newly selected Girl Hub Brand Representatives on personal presentation. I could tell immediately why these women had been selected to be representatives at conferences and events both domestically and internationally. Sarah has a calm and collected presence, Benigne is lively and outgoing, and Pascaline is refreshingly direct. All three of them exude intelligence.