From Medellin to the World
When I first found out that Restorative was my number one strength, I honestly did not understand it. I remember thinking, “What does Restorative even mean?” It was not a strength I immediately connected with myself. After thinking about it more, though, I started to see why it fits me. I have always been someone who wants to figure out what is wrong and what can be done to make it better. I like organizing tasks, finding what is missing, making decisions when they need to be made, and bringing different ideas together to create a solution. I also already had my own understanding of leadership before Laidlaw. I believe a good leader should communicate clearly, work well with others, respect different ideas, and know when to lead and when to follow. I have been in both positions, and I think being able to do both is important. My Laidlaw International Experience allowed me to use the leadership skills I had in an international environment and develop them further.
For six weeks, I lived and worked in Medellín, Colombia, through MakeSense and partnered with Platohedro, a nonprofit organization that works with marginalized communities, including youth, women, and single mothers. Platohedro uses education, art, and technology to create opportunities for people in communities that have experienced poverty and violence. Their programs give children a place to express themselves through art, while workshops for women and single mothers provide a space to connect, create, and develop art that can also provide additional income.
My project focused on helping Platohedro strengthen its international fundraising. I worked closely with Lena, the director of Platohedro, and the organization's media manager. My main responsibility was creating a list of 100 potential international donors and an email template for outreach. I also helped update Patreon and Vaki, create a content calendar, update the website, and translate website content into English, Spanish, and French. One of the most important parts of the project was making the donor list intentional. I focused on areas in the United States with large Latino communities, including California, Texas, and New York, and looked for people who might be interested in supporting international nonprofits. I included entrepreneurs, content creators, churches, law firms, nonprofits, and other potential donors. Because fundraising can work differently in different places, we focused on building international support that could help Platohedro continue its programs.
My time in Medellín gave me a chance to see my existing leadership strengths in a different setting. I have always been comfortable organizing work and making decisions when there is a deadline. I also enjoy collaboration because I believe different ideas can create a better final result. Working with Platohedro allowed me to use these strengths on a real project where the work had a purpose beyond completing an assignment. This connects to Strengths-Based Leadership, which focuses on understanding the strengths people naturally bring to a team and learning how to use them effectively (Rath and Conchie). Restorative now makes more sense to me because I realized that I naturally look for problems and think about how they can be improved.
At the same time, I learned that having a solution-oriented personality does not mean I should immediately push for my own solution. A solution needs to fit the people and environment involved. During my project, I had to think about what would actually make sense for Platohedro rather than simply doing what I would normally do. I also became more confident working with different personalities and leadership styles. Working closely with Lena and the media manager meant that we did not always approach things in exactly the same way. There were times when I needed to trust my gut and speak up, and other times when I needed to step back and allow someone else to lead. I became more comfortable with both.
This experience also reinforced something I already believed about leadership: the social environment of a team matters. I want people I work with to feel respected and comfortable bringing forward ideas. That does not mean everyone has to agree. It means people should feel like their ideas can be heard and considered. I think this is an important part of collaboration and of being able to work with people who have different experiences from my own.
The biggest personal lesson I took from Laidlaw was understanding what Restorative means for me. Before this experience, I thought Restorative simply meant being good at fixing problems. Now, I see it as being able to understand a problem and then create a solution that fits the specific situation. My work with Platohedro showed me this. We were not simply trying to find donors. We had to think about who would actually connect with the organization's work and where those supporters could be found.
That way of thinking is something I want to carry into my future career. I am interested in agriculture, sustainability, economics, policy, and international work. These fields involve problems that cannot always be solved with one general answer. I want to be able to understand the situation first and then help create solutions that make sense for the people involved. My experience also helped me develop more courage and resilience when working with different personalities. I became more comfortable trusting my judgment while still listening to other people. I learned that leading does not always mean being the person making every decision. Sometimes it means knowing when your voice is needed and when someone else's should come first.
Wangari Maathai is a leader who represents the kind of leadership I want to develop. Maathai founded the Green Belt Movement in Kenya, connecting environmental conservation with women's empowerment and community action. Her work showed that environmental problems are connected to the social and economic conditions of the people experiencing them (Hunt). What I admire most about Maathai is that she worked with communities instead of simply creating solutions for them. She gave people opportunities to participate in creating change. This connects closely to how I now understand Restorative. A solution should not just look good from the outside. It should make sense for the people who will actually use it and live with it. I also admire her willingness to stand up for what she believed in. I want to be a leader who can listen and collaborate while still being willing to speak up when something matters. I do not want respect to mean that I am afraid to disagree.
My Laidlaw experience made me more confident about the kind of leader I want to become. I want to work at the intersection of agriculture, sustainability, economics, policy, and international collaboration. I am especially interested in finding ways to address environmental and economic problems while considering the people and communities most affected by them. This connects most strongly to United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 10, Reduced Inequalities. I also see connections to SDG 1, No Poverty, and SDG 16, Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions. Platohedro showed me how social, economic, and environmental issues can overlap and why solutions need to consider the community they are meant to serve.
Over the next three years in college, I want to continue building my knowledge through coursework, research, internship. I also want to continue working with people from different backgrounds and in unfamiliar environments. By the end of my sophomore year, I want to have a clearer idea of the specific area where I want to build my career. I also want to be intentional about continuing to develop my leadership. At the end of each semester, I plan to reflect on the teams and projects I worked on and ask myself whether I communicated clearly, made space for other people's ideas, and knew when to lead or follow. I can use those reflections to set a leadership goal for the following semester. I also want my work to continue being useful after I leave a project. The donor list, email template, fundraising platform updates, content calendar, and website translations I created for Platohedro were meant to give the organization resources it could continue using after my six weeks ended. That is important to me because I want my leadership to create something that can continue beyond my own involvement.
When I first saw that Restorative was my number one strength, I did not understand why. Now, I actually like that it is my strongest strength. I have always been someone who wants to solve problems, but Laidlaw helped me understand this part of myself more clearly.
My leadership did not start in Medellín, and it did not completely change because of Medellín. Laidlaw gave me an opportunity to use the leadership skills I already had, strengthen them, and apply them in an international setting. I learned that I can be organized and decisive while still making space for other people's ideas. I can lead while also knowing when to follow. Most importantly, I learned that creating a solution starts with understanding the situation it is meant to solve. That is what Restorative means to me now.
Works Cited
Hunt, Kathleen P. “‘It’s More Than Planting Trees, It’s Planting Ideas’: Ecofeminist Praxis in the Green Belt Movement.” Southern Communication Journal, vol. 79, no. 3
Rath, Tom, and Barry Conchie. Strengths Based Leadership: Great Leaders, Teams, and Why People Follow. Gallup Press, 2008.
Schaetti, Barbara F., Sheila J. Ramsey, and Gordon Watanabe. Making a World of Difference: Personal Leadership, 2008.