This week is the very first out of my six weeks for my Leadership-in-Action project taking place in Marseille, France, to preserve sea biodiversity through partnerships with Makesense, and a local NGO, MerTerre. The first week of this programme demonstrated the full benefits of joining a centrally organised LiA project, where we were hosted and received well by the Maksense France team (shoutout to Emma, Jade and Marilou) at their very own warm and inspiring Makesense space in Bastille, Paris. 

The first two days were dedicated to getting to know each other, knowing our carbon emission from our journey, and understanding our cultural differences amongst the small yet diverse team of Laidlaw scholars. We also quickly dove into the project specific goals which we will need to work on for the next six weeks, as well as a mental health in the workplace session with Makesense. We took a short break with a day of travelling from Paris to Marseille on Wednesday, as we settled into our amazing student accommodation at La Timone, Marseille. 

On Thursday, we had the opportunity to meet the local NGOs which we will be working with, a retirement home, Les Jardin d’Haiti (a different project, Ageing Well) and MerTerre, an association working towards zero marine waste (which I will be working with). Lastly on Friday, the Makesense France team organised an intercultural leadership course where we thoroughly explored how people with different cultural backgrounds could have different perspectives on the same thing and how we should approach and respect each other. This course was especially crucial as our team of six Laidlaw scholars stationed in Marseille came from six different countries.

This week of navigating and settling in a completely different country in a different continent has been a fruitful one. I am incredibly lucky to have the chance to get to know other Laidlaw scholars and meet the incredible Makesense team. Arriving and settling Marseille almost did not happen due to a sudden wildfire at the edge of the city that caused trains and flights arriving to the city to cancel. This city particularly brought mixed feelings to me as we were told to be extra careful and alert out of concerns for our personal safety.

Though I am very excited and ready to work on the challenges given by MerTerre, there will certainly be obstacles on the way. Personally, I am dealing with health challenges and homesickness but fortunately, my project mates have been supportive and helpful in this journey. On top of that, I realised that we have pretty heavy work ahead to accomplish on top of workshops and courses organised by Makesense, highlighting the importance of teamwork and time management that I learned in my previous summer research experience in our upcoming journey. 

Next week will be the official week we kickstart our project, themed as “comprehension of the challenge”, where we’ll be meeting with MerTerre to discuss our team’s practical work, getting clarifications and understanding our project goals in-depth. Along with that are design thinking workshops and leadership courses with members of the France Makesense team and welcome parties hosted by the two NGOs in Marseille.