“If she still has the will to learn, and there is support to help her, who are we to stop her?”
Those words came from a traditional leader in Bauchi State, Nigeria.
A man who had previously opposed girls returning to school after becoming mothers.
He said them out loud, in a room full of community members, during a dialogue session led by TGLF Scholar Rashida Musa Mukaddas.
Minutes earlier, Rashida had shared the story of an adolescent mother from a non-formal learning center.
A girl who had been forced out of school but still dreamed of becoming a teacher.
Rashida had just completed a TGLF peer learning session on influencing norms.
She had listened and reflected on how fellow practitioners had successfully responded to such situations.
So she walked into that room with a different approach than she had used before.
“As I spoke, the room shifted,” she wrote.
A belief that had governed that community for generations bent in a single meeting.
This is one story among 222 shared in two days by our Alumni.
To mark our tenth anniversary, we asked TGLF Scholars two questions.
The first: share your TGLF story.
Tell us how participation has changed you and the people you serve.
Get specific.
Think of a moment that stands out.
What happened?
What were the concrete results?
The second: what do you want from The Geneva Learning Foundation in the future?
The responses were extraordinary, in volume and in substance.
Scholars from across Africa, Asia, Latin America, and Europe wrote back.
Their stories span vaccination, neglected tropical diseases, mental health and psychosocial support, gender-based violence, humanitarian response, and health systems leadership.
Results that exceeded what anyone planned for
What stands out is not the range of topics.
It is the pattern of outcomes that Scholars themselves describe as exceeding what they thought possible.
Marcel Muntu Ilunga, a public health expert working in a displaced community in DR Congo with no roads and no dedicated budget, wrote: “All 93 children aged 0 to 23 months were vaccinated within 30 days of the action plan.”
He did it using a positive deviance approach, learned from peers who explained how they had actually done it, “enlisting model parents to raise awareness throughout the settlement.”
Olenga Okitengeno Rita, a community health worker in Kinshasa, described the same kind of resourcefulness at scale.
“The challenge was immense: we had no dedicated budget and no significant logistical resources.”
She mobilized community chiefs and field workers on her own initiative.
“We managed to identify 121 children who had slipped through the vaccination system.
Without any external financial resources, but with unwavering determination, we reached 80% of those children.”
Then she did it again in another health zone: “79 children identified and over 80% vaccinated. This success proves that technical skills and human commitment can compensate for a lack of resources.”
Dr. Julien Kingombe Kambale joined the Foundation in 2019 during the Ebola response in North Kivu.
“The Foundation changed the way I think by encouraging me to share both my successes and my challenges,” he wrote.
The result: “I was able to reach 25,000 zero-dose children and reduce missed opportunities.”
Brigitte Meugang, a nurse in Cameroon, described what happened after she joined a TGLF programme on neglected tropical diseases.
She trained 80 staff at her hospital and 40 health facilities in her area.
Then she followed the patients herself.
“Of eleven patients I personally followed, nine achieved full recovery and two were able to conceive and give birth. This remains something extraordinary for me.”
The methods are as remarkable as the numbers
Across nearly every response, the same sequence appears: a Scholar encounters a problem that existing approaches cannot solve, engages with peers through TGLF, and then does something different on the ground.
Dr. Bidilu Charles, a pharmacist in Kinshasa, described building a peer learning practice from nothing.
“We created a working group with colleagues where we communicate by WhatsApp every morning and every evening for about ten minutes. We started by discussing the quality of medical prescriptions circulating in our area.” By collecting incorrect prescriptions and studying them together, “this exercise forced each of us to discover our own gaps.”
Today, they run awareness campaigns for prescribers across peripheral areas.
Acheampong Kudom, a public health specialist in Ghana, faced a religious group refusing HPV vaccination.
His team wanted to either ignore the group or invoke the law.
Instead, he drew on something a colleague had shared during a Teach to Reach session.
“So instead of going after them on the powers of our public health act, I resorted to listening to their reasons, showed genuine concern for their beliefs, and got insights on how to tailor our HPV communications to their understanding. That day, they did not agree to the vaccination, but subsequently, a significant number of them agreed to get their children vaccinated.”
Roody Jacques, a logistician in Haiti, described a transformation in himself.
“With the insecurity taking hold in Haiti, I used to tell myself that if vaccines were not reaching health facilities, it was not my fault.”
Then he joined the Foundation.
“I quickly understood that this attitude was not acceptable. Since then, I have thrown myself body and soul into ensuring supply, regardless of the security situation, which is currently at its lowest point.”
André Claude Mukinayi Kalamba, a nurse in Kalemie, DR Congo, put it in a single image: “I climbed into a makeshift canoe for the very first time to vaccinate a population on the other side of a riverbank. The Foundation helped me find the courage to go and help others. The result was that this population, which had been hostile to vaccination, was vaccinated without any problems.”
What peer learning actually changes
Several Scholars described something harder to quantify than vaccination numbers, but perhaps more consequential: a fundamental shift in how they see their own role.
Titus Kipchirchir Kolongei, a consultant working across multiple countries, wrote: “The single most transformative thing TGLF gave me is a conviction I carry into every field assignment: no challenge is too large to be solved. Someone, somewhere, has already faced it. The question is whether I am humble enough to look, listen, and learn from them.”
He named the shift precisely: “Before TGLF, I was a strong technician. After TGLF, I became a learning leader.”
Kouatchouang Adrienne Vanessa, a public health specialist in Cameroon, described how months of polio vaccination campaigns hit a wall.
“The population was becoming increasingly resistant to vaccination.
Despite all our efforts, we felt our messages were no longer getting through as they once had.”
Through TGLF, she learned something she had not expected. “I learned something fundamental: how to put words to my experience, share what I truly live through on the ground, and above all, listen to others. I am no longer only in action. I am also in reflection, sharing, and collective learning.”
Marguerite Bosita Saye, a doctor in Lukunga, DR Congo, applied the “five whys” technique she learned through peer learning. “Why are children not vaccinated? Because they do not come to the health center. Why? Because parents are not informed or have reservations.”
She traced the chain all the way down to the root: “Because there was no clear community mobilization strategy adapted to the local context.”
Kateryna Vyshnevska, a welfare specialist in Ukraine, described how the Foundation’s PFA Accelerator shaped her response to a sensitive case involving a minor during the war.
“This was not abstract learning. It directly shaped the outcome for that child.”
Then something unexpected happened.
“I began applying simple, practical approaches, like creating ’safe corners’ for children, an idea that emerged and grew through peer learning. It spread quickly among practitioners I support and became a small but powerful intervention that others could adapt immediately.”
And sometimes the impact is carried in a single sentence a Scholar will never forget.
Arinzechi Ogonna Ijeoma, a pharmacist in Nigeria, wrote: “One experience I will never forget was when a young person told me, ’This is the first time someone has explained this to me without making me feel ashamed.’”
What Scholars want from TGLF next
The second question asked Scholars to look ahead.
What emerged was a declaration of continued commitment paired with specific asks.
Scholars want more.
More programmes, more depth, more languages, more opportunities to connect with peers across borders.
Several asked for TGLF to expand into new thematic areas where they see the same peer learning model working.
Others asked for more sustained support after courses end, so that the momentum does not stop when a programme closes.
They want to contribute.
Multiple Scholars explicitly offered to take on mentoring and facilitation roles.
They see themselves not as participants waiting for the next course, but as leaders of a movement that keeps growing through their own effort.
Olenga Okitengeno Rita described her trajectory in exactly those terms: “The greatest transformation was my transition to the role of TGLF Congolese movement leader.”
They want recognition of what local expertise can do.
Across the responses, there is a quiet but consistent message.
The solutions already exist in the communities where Scholars work.
What TGLF provides is not the answer.
It is the structure, the peer connection, and the confidence to act on what they already know.
Their words are the evidence
These are not testimonials written for a report.
They are first-person accounts from health and humanitarian workers describing what they did, where they did it, and what changed as a result.
A nurse who crossed a river in a canoe.
A pharmacist who built a daily learning practice from ten-minute WhatsApp sessions.
A community health worker who reached 80% of missed children with zero funding.
A leader who reversed a generation of belief in a single meeting.
Over the coming weeks, we will be sharing these voices one at a time across our social media channels.
One story per day, in English and in French.
Their words are the clearest measure of what a decade of peer learning makes possible.