It's Friday the 10th of July, and I am coming to the end of my first week in Mexico City on my Leadership in Action project, working with Rennueva as part of the MakeSense program!

Having arrived at Heathrow Airport, I boarded the eleven hour flight to Mexico City, touching down on Monday evening. 

The first week has been full of introductions and getting down to basics. It was great to meet the MakeSense team, who have organised an incredible six weeks full of experiences and learning for us, along with all the scholars who have come from across the world. 

After spending the first day mostly doing introductions and sorting logisticals, we had the chance to learn a bit more about the methods of learning we will be using, including the Leadership Learning Methodology Matrix which we will be using to track our progress. There is an emphasis on a different structure of learning from what we may have been used to in our previous formal education, which I find really interesting and focuses on long term learning and adaptation. 

On Wednesday and Thursday, we had the chance to meet the Rennueva team, beginning with a virtual meeting with Hector, the company's CEO. On Thursday, along with the rest of the scholars, we visited Rennueva's warehouse and operations centre. Having only met virtually before, the chance to visit them in-person, and see first-hand the work they do, was really informative. We toured the facilities, learning about all the different types of plastics they recycle, and had a very cool look at their bus that they tour Mexico in, teaching about recycling and showing us the different things they can create through polystyrene recycling. 

Me and the rest of the Rennueva team then had the chance to spend some time together with Hector, where we got a really detailed and in-depth understanding of the project we are going to work on, along with the chance to learn a lot more about Hector's, and Rennueva's, background, and the way that it has evolved over time. Hector's openness, desire to learn about us as scholars and time he gave us was incredibly beneficial and important for us to have. 

Over the coming weeks, me and the rest of the Rennueva team will be working on a project to design a waste management system in Quintana Roo, by following principles of the circular economy, stakeholder management and business design. I am looking forward to doing this, as whilst I have done work on similar issues in the UK and as part of my year in industry, doing this in a new environment, with a different language, culture, laws and constitutional outline, will be a really inspiring challenge and one that I look forward to tackling in coming weeks.