Leadership That Multiplies: AMPLIF-EYE Begins Its First Global Cohort

‍AMPLIF-EYE: Advancing Mentorship and Professional Leadership in Female Eye Health

A mentorship initiative designed to uplift women in eye health leadership
‍

Authored by: Jennifer Tapia Boada  

Women Leaders in Eye Health is proud to mark an exciting new milestone with the official launch of AMPLIF-EYE, our leadership and mentorship programme designed to support women in eye health to grow as leaders, mentor others, and become catalysts for change within their institutions and communities.

AMPLIF-EYE was created in response to a persistent challenge across the eye health sector: while women represent a significant part of the health workforce, they continue to be underrepresented in leadership, and structured mentorship opportunities remain limited. At its core, the programme seeks to address this gap through a sustainable model that strengthens women's leadership while creating a multiplying cycle of mentorship across the sector.

Meet Our First AMPLIF-EYE Cohort

We are particularly excited to welcome the first-ever AMPLIF-EYE cohort: 19 women eye health professionals representing seven countries: Bangladesh, China, Ethiopia, Mongolia, Vietnam, and Zambia.

Participants represent a diverse range of institutions, including universities, hospitals, government health services, specialist eye hospitals, and national eye health bodies.

The cohort was identified through a careful selection process undertaken in collaboration with Orbis International's country teams. Under the AMPLIF-EYE selection framework, Country Teams and Gender Champions play a central role in identifying eligible women with demonstrated leadership potential. Nominees then complete an application process articulating their leadership goals and how they intend to apply their learning within their institutions, before final selection using standardized criteria to support transparency, diversity, and regional representation.
‍

A Leadership Programme Designed to Multiply Impact

AMPLIF-EYE is designed as more than a traditional leadership course. Its Training-of-Trainers model means participants will strengthen their own leadership and mentoring capabilities and then use these skills to support others in their professional communities.

Each participant will develop a mentorship plan during the programme and, following the training phase, is expected to implement a mentorship initiative within their own institution or community.

This multiplier approach lies at the heart of AMPLIF-EYE. The programme's learning journey follows three stages. Participants first reflect on their own leadership journey, then strengthen their ability to mentor others, and finally explore how leadership and mentorship can contribute to institutional and systemic change.

Across the programme, participants will benefit from eight live virtual workshops, ongoing Peer Circles in small groups, and individual coaching with our Leadership and Innovation Advisor.  The experience is designed to combine leadership and mentoring skills with peer learning, a supportive professional network, and the development of concrete mentorship initiatives.

Kick-off Workshop: Knowing the System

The journey officially began on 30 October with AMPLIF-EYE's first workshop titled: "Knowing the System."

Led by Zamira Monteiro, WLEH's Leadership and Innovation Advisor, the opening workshop introduced participants to AMPLIF-EYE and invited the new cohort to begin examining a fundamental challenge facing the sector: the relationship between inequity in who gets eye care and inequity in who gets to lead it.

Participants explored gender disparities affecting patient access alongside persistent inequalities in leadership and the eye health workforce. Through presentations, breakout discussions, and practice scenarios, participants began identifying how these challenges appear within their own countries and institutions.

A key message was clear, women are not lacking leadership potential, structural and institutional barriers often constrain them.

Participants were encouraged to think beyond individual solutions and examine change at three interconnected levels: individual and interpersonal, institutional and systemic, and policy and advocacy. The workshop challenged participants to consider not only how they might grow personally as leaders, but how that leadership could ultimately influence their workplaces and wider systems.

‍

From Learning to Local Action

An important feature of AMPLIF-EYE is that the learning journey does not end when the workshops finish. Throughout the programme, each participant will develop and refine a Mentorship Plan, drawing on workshop learning, Peer Circles, and individual coaching. By the end of the programme, participants will submit their refined plans and subsequently work toward implementing mentorship initiatives within their own professional settings.

The broader AMPLIF-EYE framework is designed to follow this implementation and capture learning about the reach, continuation, and impact of participants' mentorship activities. In that sense, the program's ambition is not limited to graduate a cohort of stronger individual leaders. It seeks to equip those leaders to multiply their impact, extend mentorship to others, and contribute to more supportive and inclusive institutional environments.

The launch of AMPLIF-EYE represents an important step forward in WLEH's broader leadership development agenda. We are connecting structured leadership development, mentorship, peer learning, individual coaching, and locally led action, and by doing so,  AMPLIF-EYE is creating a pathway through which women's leadership can extend beyond individual advancement and contribute to institutional and systems-level change.

‍

Today, that journey begins with 19 women across seven countries. 19 leaders strengthening their own voices, mentoring others, building stronger networks, and helping create environments where more women in eye health can lead.

We cannot wait to follow their journey!