My final week in Peru began with the culmination of my team’s efforts to showcase the work we did for Saphi by presenting the efforts to our peers and members of the community and soliciting feedback that could be constructive for the future. It was wonderful to see how much all the other scholars we were working with supported us just as we had supported them in their respective showcases – the culture of collaboration was still strong in Lima! The volunteers we had been working with to capture content and share it with Saphi’s followers were also in attendance, which gave us the opportunity to thank them for their invaluable contributions to the project. It felt like an important moment in which we were able to step back and celebrate all the work we put in to making Saphi’s social media reachable to English-speaking audiences and making it focused on promoting cultural positivity towards Quechua. As our project had grown and developed, so had our commitment to it, and so had the relationships which made it all possible.

The showcase also happened to coincide with my birthday, my first ever celebrated without my family present. And yet, far from feeling isolated, I was reminded that the same relationships which had made the volunteering part of my time in Peru so productive had also become important in my personal life. Again, I was struck by the growth I had experienced across my time in Lima – I went from knowing none of my fellow scholars to being able to call all of them real and genuine friends, friends I hope to keep in touch with for a long time to come. The start of the week was celebratory, full of helpful feedback, and rife with opportunities to recognise growth and development.

The rest of the week was focused on tying up loose ends. Meetings with the Saphi team led to the final few videos being set up for editing and shared with the organisation’s leaders. We reflected on what went well – the contributions of the volunteers, the number of videos we were able to produce, and positive tone we struck – and also what we would improve if we had the chance to go back – things like diversity of theme, structure of some of the videos, the management of our time split between planning and actually gathering content, etc. It was refreshing to see how much better we understood how to go about improving our project as it proved to all of us that we had learned and grown in Peru, as leaders and also as people. This formed the message that we gave to all the people who helped us accomplish what we did: you helped us to grow and we appreciate every opportunity you gave us. It was a pleasure to have so many people to thank.

Before I knew it, it was time to say goodbye to all the friends I had made and to the city which had been so kind to me for a thrilling six weeks. Lima’s bustling streets had begun to feel more familiar than they did foreign, and I felt as though I understood the city’s psyche a little better. It is a city of people who work hard, but who also value socialising and making the most of the non-work hours, the result of which is establishments open late into the night, filled with friends and families. It is hard to feel alone in Lima when there are so many opportunities to connect with others in new and exciting ways. Lima is a city of beautiful art, of people working for the future while also respecting the past. It is a city where innovation is to be found in the unlikeliest of places and where small movements have big ripples. The Peruvian social enterprising and volunteering community is tight-knit and self-supporting, embodying a kind of resilience and devotion to others that I hope to emulate. No one was more representative of this than our programme coordinators Jud and Pau, leaders who never tired of asking the simple and challenging question “what do others need that I might be able to help with?” not “what do I want to do?”. The distinction is a significant one, and one which I will remember for a long time to come.

Leaving Peru, I knew that I would miss the meaningful work and the beautiful place. In the end, I could add to that list the people who truly shaped my time there. The friends who made it not just fulfilling, but fun. In the end, my heart grew to encompass a new country and whole new group of scholars, volunteers, and social entrepreneurs. My biggest takeaway from my six-week Laidlaw journey, then, was how beautiful it is to engage with something not just intellectually, but to involve your whole heart and soul in it and to grow in the process. It is something which I believe will shape the way I approach leadership for a very long time to come and something for which I am truly grateful.