LiA W5 - Finalising Deliverables & Almost Farewell!

Week 5 is my second-to-last week of my LiA project in Marseille. This week, we had another workshop with Jade from Maksense about how to learn from the results of our field survey, which included observations from beach cleanup and interviewing MerTerre’s employees on what they need and the different views on marine pollution from the general public. A field survey is crucial for any project to understand the needs of people needing your solution and provide a grasp of the current situation around the issue. For example, beach cleanup allowed us to directly understand the negative impact and significance of marine pollution and interviewing MerTerre’s employees allows us to understand their needs and problems so that we can focus on practical and user-centred solutions. 
This week’s main objective is to finalise our deliverables, which mine consisted of a literature review on the impact of plastic pollution on human health and biodiversity, a part in the proposal report to boost the engagement of MerTerre with its communities and putting together our final pitch deck for MerTerre. Theo, our main contact from MerTerre, was extremely helpful and provided useful feedback and suggestions during our weekly meeting when we updated our progress on our benchmarking reports. On top of that, we also had a group coaching session with Jade from Makesense. Although the workload for this week was relatively intense, Jade was very understanding and helped us navigate through the mental stress and the many deliverables of the program. 
On Wednesday, our team also helped the Les Jardin d’Haiti team clean up the garden located in the retirement home, which produced a drastic change in the garden's conditions. I was really happy to be able to help in this garden cleanup, as the other team always came to help during beach cleanup and although tiring, it was really satisfying to see the transformation of the garden. 
We also said our farewell to Emma from Makesense this week, as it would be the last time for us to see her in person. Our last official meetup with Marie, our local referent, took place on Friday, where we updated her on our activities, our progress, and we were able to provide feedback on the programme’s organisation. 
For the remainder of the programme, we will only be left with finalising our deliverables and preparing our final pitch. Personally, I felt very homesick at the beginning of the programme, thinking how long these six weeks could be, but now, it feels like time has passed just in the blink of an eye. Although we had some trouble acclimatising to the weather here at the beginning and some issues with our accommodation, the experience in Marseille has been really enjoyable and nearing the end, I fell in love with yet another city. Marseille, being very distinct from where I study, Hong Kong, offers a very different landscape, with amazing coastal views and graffiti over almost every building here. I am also glad that I have met 5 other amazing scholars through this programme, whom I will definitely miss so much after the end of this programme.