Last November I had just moved to Rwanda to launch Resonate. As I prepared to teach my first ever Storytelling for Leadership workshop in country, I reflected on how fitting it was that my first group of students would be the graduating class of Rwanda’s only women’s college. As a Smith College graduate, I know firsthand how inspiring it can be to study alongside other dedicated, smart, passionate women.

We have had so much fun these past few weeks working with the Akili Dada scholars and fellows in Kenya. They put up a great post about why storytelling is important as they empower the next generation of African female leaders.

This summer, I helped Resonate transition to box.com, an online file sharing system. Box does a number of cool things like update documents to the latest version in real time (no more deleting / reposting or saving drafts as “v1; v2; v3…”) and lets you collaborate within the platform by commenting, tagging, and assigning or completing tasks. I geek out on it because it’s a centralized space for team collaboration and massive productivity. Resonate loves box.

With the lingering effects of jetlag taking their toll, I arrived on campus at the Akilah Institute for Women on Monday morning at 7:30am still a bit bleary eyed. This was my first time visiting Akilah, the partner group who will host the inaugural workshop in Resonate’s pilot project.

In my circles, when we ask “what’s your story?” we want to learn about where someone grew up, what they do for a living, their plans for the evening or something similarly superficial. In contrast, when Resonate leads a workshop with this underlying question, they are probing participants to demonstrate their values through a story of struggle and triumph.

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.