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If it weren’t for the training and coaching I got, and continue to get at Legacy Center, I would not be here in S. Sudan helping to start a project that will save hundreds of thousands of children’s lives in a country where one in four dies before his or her 5^th birthday.   Less than a week after Legacy Center Leadership’s NC104 first weekend, at a high level meeting where I would previously have been an observer only, I burst out of my box, climbed out on some skinny branches, and convinced my Ethiopian colleagues that our project would make a big difference in S. Sudan.  They helped me convince their S. Sudanese colleagues that I was right.   I truly believe that this was possible of the coaching at Legacy Center that kept that inspiration and incentive alive. 

The very next week in New Delhi that committed coaching and tools I received in the Advanced Course also helped me turn an adversarial meeting with a Gates Foundation representative into a very positive relationship that ensured that a first-time grant of nearly $1 million from the Gates Foundation was awarded while I was NC105 LP.  A second proposal to Gates that I wrote during Legacy Center PhD-9 was approved before PhD-9 3^rd weekend.  Yes, I can ‘git ‘er done!’  It’s no coincidence that these and other successes happened during, and because of all of the training and coaching and living I’ve gotten to do at the Legacy Center. 

Now, David Newberry and I are here in Juba, S.Sudan helping to overcome some challenges and roadblocks that have cropped up in the past year.  We arrived Sunday and have been using our training all week to get the project back on track, build supportive and visionary relationships, enroll others into thinking out of their boxes and making 100% possible (particularly important in a new country that will be building its own health infrastructure).  We’ve been here for 5 days and we’ve not only overcome almost every obstacle we faced (and some we weren’t expecting) but we’ve actually increased the scope and reach of the project so it will reach thousands more children, and we’re talking about what new steps we get to take to get the resources to expand the project even more.

It’s amazing to be here and watch children who’ve been away from their families because of both violence and uncertainty around the referendum start to come back to Juba, and dream of how different life will be for them when they grow up.  I wanted all of the Legacy Center coaches know that not only have you contributed to my seeing some of my dreams come true this week, but when you read that the children of S. Sudan no longer have one of the highest mortality rates in the world, but are surviving to create their own better country and better world, you helped give them, their children, and the world that gift.

Ellen Coates   More about this accomplishment