So I am back from my Cape Town trip, it was the best and the most fulfilling experience in my life. Remember I attended the Lucca Leadership Programme, I met people from different parts of Africa and the world; there were people from Kenya, Ireland, UK, Greece and Australia. This course was a leadership programme and the people there are involved in different parts of community upliftment and were all there to learn more on how to be better leaders, everyone there is a great leader but we were there to improve and learn more about ourselves and about what makes us a good leader.

On the day of arrival we all had a wonderful dinner, were we introduced ourselves; where we come from and how we heard about the Lucca Leadership Programme. Then the following day the games began, so the first three days we learnt about the different parts of leadership.

So let me share with you the different parts of things we learnt. We first went through the qualities of a leader, we had a discussion about “Is there a difference between a great leader and a great human being”, which I will let you ask yourselves. We learnt that transformation begins with yourself, human beings work from the inside out, so we did the Human Framework/ Awareness exercise (Acting, thinking-plan, feel-emotions). Then we did the STOP exercise - being aware of your five senses which was so amazing, because it would bring the different types of energy levels in the room to one energy level, so we did this every time before starting a new task or lesson.

Then we learnt about the different types of energy levels which we all go through in our everyday lives, which are Swan energy - following, Tiger - high, which we joburg people are always in, but is not always a bad thing and last but not least there is Sloth energy - slow, it usually happens when we are sleeping and your mind is at peace, which is hard for most of us because we start dreaming about work ’cause we find it hard to shut down.

I will start to be brief because if I tell you everything I learnt this will turn into a book instead of a blog! So let’s continue, then there was the Decision Tree. We make decisions all the time in our lives and they all involve the following (me, family and friend, local community, wide community, nation, humanity, all). Position of Leadership - serving the need and awareness. We did Personal Mastery and the 6 different leadership styles which are Directive, Visionary, Affiliate, Participative, Pace setting and coaching. We had a few activities were we implemented what we learnt in the lessons which was interesting, and we would review after each activity how we found the activity and what our learnings were.

It gets better: we met two great leaders who were involved a lot during the time of Apartheid and we took a trip to Robben Island. We first met Eddie Daniel who took us on a tour around the island, and you ask yourself “who is Eddie Daniel?”. Eddie Daniel was an apartheid prisoner for 15 years on Robben Island and he served his time with Nelson Mandela.

He left school early to help with his family finances and the racial insults and exclusions prompted him to join the Liberal Party of South Africa. He shared some of his personal stories and the account of what happened on Robben Island at a crucial time in history Of South Africa.

It was moving and inspiring to hear what he and the other prisoners did to survive their time on the island. That they all turned to each other for support when times were hard, they walked in there as strangers and walked out as life long friends and amazing leaders who fought for freedom and equality of the people of South Africa. During his 15 year sentence for sabotage on Robben Island, Eddie Daniel completed two university degrees.

The second leader was Di Oliver. She was part of the Black Sash, largely made up of middle-class white women, who mounted petitions, protests, marches and vigils to oppose apartheid. The Black Sash was a non-violent white women’s resistance organisation founded in 1955 by Jean Sinclair. Di Oliver was trained as a social worker and joined the Black Sash’s advice office.

She was part of the women’s movement who demonstrated against the Pass Laws and instruction of other apartheid legislations. Its members used the relative safety of their privileged racial classification to speak out about the erosion of human rights in the country. Their Black Sashes were worn as a mark of mourning and to protest against unjust laws.

Both Eddie Daniel and Di Oliver showed what it means to be a great leader and a leader serves for the purpose. He served to his nation with a vision to see peace among all South Africans and that makes him a great leader and great human being.

I had an unforgettable experience that I will never forget and I learnt so much about myself, things I took for granted and I was so unaware of.

I have grown so much in such a short space of time and seen what I am capable of. The change I can make in my life and other people lives too, which I will start to implement.

I thank the Lucca Leadership Foundation for a wonderful learning experience, which I am able to carry on and able to take back with me.