Bridging Leadership Program or BLP is a program for community leaders. It is a combination of training on leadership for sustainable development and a month internship for the participants. The program aimed to increase the capacity of potential local community leaders in the district level through with knowledge on sustainable development paradigm, leadership skills, resource mobilization methods, and long-term strategic development plan.

The training applies active-learning approach with intensive dialog. Each batch will recruit 30 potential community leaders with different background, who will involve in one-year activities. Those who are selected to join internship will learn the application of sustainable development conceptual framework in daily life, where they will know better the challenges and the strategy toward success.

The first batch of BLP was conducted in Nanggroe Aceh Darussalam (NAD) with 27 participants. It was supported by CIDA for a year activities with amount of CAD 100,000. It was a successful program that was appreciated highly by the participants. LEAD Indonesia is also very fortunate to have another funding resource to support the program. LEAD International has solicited funds to be channeling in BLP stage 2 that will finance a 3-year program with a funding of GBP 400.000. With the experience of the first batch in Nanggroe Aceh Darussalam in year 2006-2007, LEAD Indonesia has the opportunity to conduct the project for year 2008-2011for the same area and broaden the impacts.

BLP phase two will work on district of Pidie, Aceh Besar and Aceh Jaya. There will be 30 participants for each year, and in total BLP will train 90 participants. Those who will join internship will learn more from program implementation to make it a successful one. The best trainee from each batch will be trained as trainer, and they have the opportunity to practice in the following batch. It is expected that BLP will equip the young community leaders in NAD with the capacity to be the future leader in their community that brings a more sustainable future through economic development that respect to social justice and take into account the environmental carrying capacity.

In June 2008, the first workshop has been conducted, where LEAD International, Laura.. and Trevor Rees…involved. The workshop facilitated the work plan among partners. It is expected that the feedback from the BLP alumni and the agreement among partners on how to implement the program, will make the program more relevant to the needs of the incoming participants. The survey on the project site and the recruitment process will start in July 2008 and the training is expected to begin afterwards.

For further information regarding BLP in NAD, please contact Catharina Any Sulistyowati, Project Coordinator, at anyapd@gmail.com.