Context

GSP Explore 3 is a ten-day leadership camp for 43 participants, run by the African Leadership Academy in Johannesburg as part of the Global Scholars Program. I worked as an educator on GSP camps in 2024 and 2025. This year, I'm Director: responsible for six educators and everything they're responsible for, plus the parts of the camp only a director owns directly.

Challenge

Directing is a different job from teaching. I'm not running sessions day to day, I'm building the structure six other educators operate inside: who owns which excursion, which check-in, which assembly slot, decided before any of them arrive. I'm also the first point of escalation for anything from a scheduling conflict to a child-protection concern, per the program's crisis protocol.

Approach

Training the educators is mine to run, across four days before the camp starts: team orientation, a best-practices session, mock facilitation with feedback, then a full simulation of arrivals day. I draft the responsibility grid and the educator pairings before training begins, rather than building either live with the team. Once the camp is running, the job is curriculum roll-out day to day, educator check-ins, and being available to co-teach when a session needs it.

What this is tracked against

Two deliverables per participant: an individual Leadership Trajectory Map and a team Community Idea. An end-of-camp survey with a contracted target of 75 percent or higher. A full camp report, plus individual reports for each of the 43 participants, due at close.

Why this belongs next to the rest

It's the same underlying job as the content and branding work, applied to people instead of a feed: build the system, hand it to the people who run it day to day, and be the one accountable when something in it breaks. It's also a personal arc: from running sessions as an educator in 2024 and 2025 to being the one who designs the structure the other educators run inside.