For my Leadership In Action Summer, I worked with Make_Sense, a social change and activism organisation working in Mexico City on a project called 'reaction' which works on the idea that if we educate one person on a social issue - in this case, climate change - then they will continue the chain of education to spread the word of how we can change social issues affecting the world. We were placed in pairs and assigned an organisation to work with for the duration of the 6 week hybrid experience (2 weeks on Zoom and 4 weeks in Mexico City).

Each group worked with a different NGO, some worked with Widu (an app which promotes making sustainable and environmentally friendly choices in daily life), others worked with Extinction Rebellion on an 'artivism' project to fight climate change through art. We were placed with Bio-Eco. This is an organisation which promotes the use of biodigesters to livestock farmers across Mexico to fight against the use of chemical fertilisers which cause eutrophication. A biodigester is a piece of technology which is turns manure into natural fertilisers and extracts the methane gas from decomposing waste which would otherwise be released into the atmosphere as a greenhouse gas and turns it into usable gas for cooking, heating the home etc. 

This is a week by week run through of my time in the project! 

Week 1

The first week was very interesting! Other than a few information sessions before we got started, we hadn't really been told more than we would working on a 'reaction for climate' project in CDMX. On Monday 18th July on one of the hottest days of the year so far, I joined the Zoom call. We talked through the introduction, got to know each other and were assigned our project partners and the organisations we would be working with. By the Wednesday, we had a meeting with the organisation to discuss what we would be doing for the summer. Overall the first week was great - I went into it very nervous and very much not knowing what to expect and came out of it feeling prepared and understanding the project! 

Week 2

During the online portion of the hybrid experience, the days were very short. We often had one or two 90 minute meetings a day and minimal tasks to complete during the rest of the days which was great for allowing time to get to know one another and the project to feel prepared to get started in CDMX from Week 3.

A large portion of this week was focused on learning about Design Thinking - a working style which asks you to empathise with the person affected by a solution, come up with a prototype for a possible solution and assess how this would or wouldn't be successful. This was a great way to think and helped to make finding a solution for the proposed issue much more manageable as it was broken down into small sections. As interesting as this was though, it became increasingly more difficult as the weeks progressed to actually put it into practice, especially because we had so many tasks to complete that it was most often left behind in favour of the most logical and efficient method of getting everything that needed to be done, done. 

Week 3

I flew into Mexico City on July 30th at 4am with one of the other members of the team. A lovely member of the Make_Sense team then immediately picked us up and brought us to the hotel - Hotel MX Roma in Roma Norte which is a vibrate and welcoming neighbourhood! Myself and Becca (my flight buddy and now roommate) spent the rest of the weekend doing very little. We explored the neighbourhood, took in the beautiful architecture, met the other scholars as they arrived in dribs and drabs, and slept off the jetlag. 

On Monday morning we went into the office. A co-working space around a 10 minute walk from our hotel. The first week consisted largely of welcome sessions, getting to know each other and our project partners and beginning to lay the foundations for our project. The main goal of the week was to recruit our volunteers. The Make_Sense team had, ahead of time, recruited a pool of English speaking volunteers whom we then had to convince to join our team. We worked on Canva to create posts advertising our plans, who we are and how to join our team and then posted them on the 'Reaction For Climate' Instagram. 

Our plan to hold educational workshops about the benefits of manure didn't really have the same ring to it as some of the other more creative sessions so we got off to a slow start with recruitment. Eventually though, things started to pick up and we managed to see a steady stream of volunteers beginning to join us. 

Outside of work, we also had a lovely time together! Everyone in the team is lovely and we all got on very well meaning that we would often go out on trips together, for meals and for nights out. The Make_Sense team also took us to fully funded meals out once a week and on trips to various places every Saturday! For this first week in Mexico City, we went on our 'Impact Tour' which took us to Xolchilmilco, an area around 40 minutes from where were were staying and home of the native axolotl. There, we met with the local farming community, went on a boat trip to the farm of a family in the area and helped to plant some courgette seeds! We also learnt about how they create their own natural fertilisers which was especially interesting for our team as we were working to promote them! After Xolchilmilco, we then went to Heurto Roma Verde, around a 10 minute walk from where we were staying. That came to become one of my favourite places in the city and I spent a lot of time there! It is a garden and educational space, as well as the base of Extinction Rebellion Mexico. They spoke to us about their work, how they are almost entirely self sufficient and about the benefits of using period blood on crops! It was a great end to a great first week in CDMX. 

Week 4

 The 4th week is when we faced a lot more of our challenges. Although we were a lot more settled in Roma Norte and felt more comfortable in what our project was, we were quickly nearing the closing date for volunteer recruitment and had a lot of issues with it. Our main issue was that the volunteers had not been notified that they should only sign up for the projects they had the time for which resulted in many of the volunteers from the pool signing up for many, if not all, of the offered projects. This resulted in the Make Sense team having to contact them to force them to choose only the projects that they could commit to. In this week we fluctuated from 4 volunteers to 2 to 8 and then finally 7 volunteers because of people choosing other projects and dropping out of ours. Eventually, at the point of 2 volunteers, we had to contact the volunteers who had signed up for the volunteer pool with Make Sense but not any of our projects just to tell them outright that they had been selected for our projects rather than giving them the choice of selecting a project just so that we stood a chance of the project going ahead smoothly. Thankfully, by the end of the week, things finally started looking up for me and Kim (my project partner). 

Aside from the volunteers dilemma, it was also just a generally hectic week as we got settled into the project. We met in person with the leader of our organisation for the first time to discuss our plans, made finishing touches to the Notion page that we were using to provide the volunteers with all of the information they would need, and planned our presentation for the volunteers for our introductory meeting on the Monday of Week 5 which saw the beginning of 'Reaction' - the official launch of everything we had been working on for the past 4 weeks! We also continued working on Design Thinking, went to a local park to learn more about comfort zones and panic zones, and grew more curious of the fabled 8th floor - a floor which didn't seem to exist despite there being a button for it in the office lift!

That weekend was such a relief after such a difficult week! We spent the Saturday on our weekly trip and this time it was to Castillo de Chapultepec, a castle located in the local park. We saw the beautiful sights, some truly incredible architecture, a live performance by a pianist and opera singer in the large hall, and had more group pictures at more angles than you could ever imagine by our lovely tour guide, Renaldo. Afterwards, we all went our own ways and headed towards a small area around 30 minutes away called Centro de Coyoacán. From there, we headed into a huge market of local sellers called Mercado de Coyoacán. We honestly spent around 3 hours there and could have easily stayed much longer - it was huge! I bought gifts for my family and then we as a group of 5 bought matching beading bracelets to remember that day together! Afterwards, we took at Uber back to the hotel and sat in the breakfast area just to sit and talk into the night! That day still stands as a favourite of the entire month!

On the Sunday, it was back to biodigester related activities as Kim and I went to another market across the road from Heurto Roma Verde called Mercado el Cien. We spoke to the wonderful manager, Ana, who introduced us to a lot of different farmers who came to sell their products at the market and we were able to invite all of them to our events! I was also able to buy my first iced oat milk latte of Mexico from one of the producers there who happened to be from Oaxaca, one of the best known regions for coffee bean crops in Mexico (it was one of the best coffees I've ever had)! 

Week 5

Week 5 was when everything started to come together! After 4 weeks of work, it was time for our project plans to come to fruition, it was time for the 'reaction' part of our 'reaction for climate' project. On the first Monday, we met with our volunteers for the first time and they were absolutely lovely! Unfortunately, we did have two of our volunteers who dropped out on day one after realising they no longer had the time to commit to the project but that still left us with 5 incredibly dedicated and hardworking volunteers in our team! We separated them into two teams. The first was the event hosting team - Mars, Yadira and Berenice - who would be delivering the information to the farmers and leading our games at the events. The second was the graphic design team - Daniella and Nenoc - who were responsible for creating the presentation with the information that would be delivered to the attendees of our events, and an information pack for the farmers to take away with them. We set the design team a deadline of Wednesday at 12pm to get their tasks completed and amazingly they turned everything in ahead of the deadline and everything was of such an amazing quality that we could almost immediately hand it off to the event hosting team to learn for our first on the Friday of that week. 

On the Thursday of week 5, we hosted an events run through in person so that we could get to know the events team and work through any issues with presenting and the presentation. We also had a run through of our game which we decided would be a 'step forward' game where we asked participants to step forwards if they knew about biodigesters, if they actively make choices to prevent climate change etc. with the hopes that if people were unable to step forwards, they would consider their actions a little more closely when it comes to preventing climate change! Once this was all ready, we were away and ready for our first official event the next day! 

After all of the planning, it was a little disappointing when on Friday's event, we only got one attendee at our event! However, the volunteers were incredible in changing the event to be a more informal conversation and in the end, our one participant actually signed up for the waiting list to have a biodigester installed on his farm!! 

At the end of fifth week was our final weekend in CDMX. It had gone by so quickly! With the Make Sense team on the Saturday, we were taken to Teotihuacán, a vast archaeological area just outside of Mexico City with pyramids which were once sites of worships for native Mexican communities. The sites were incredibly beautiful and we learnt about how clapping in the middle of the area sounded like bird song, how the communities were so well versed in stone carving that the structures that everything was almost identical, and we even got to climb up one of the smaller structures which gave us an incredible view for miles! Afterwards, we all headed to a restaurant to have our evening meal together and it was a restaurant inside of a cave! The food was amazing and we were also treated to a performance by a live mariachi band! 

On the Sunday, a small group of us travelled back to Xolchimilco and took part in something called the Temazcal. It is a ceremony in we sat inside a small covered hut with a pit in the middle. Rocks were heated and placed inside the pit along with many different herbs. The purpose is to cleanse the body of toxins as we sat in the steam for two hours, causing us to sweat a lot! In the time we were in there, we were led in singing songs, talking about things that we were thankful for, thinking of our families and were told stories about indigenous tradition by Don German who was leading the ceremony. Afterwards, we were treated to an amazing meal cooked by the family and then made our way back to the hotel! It was an incredible end to the final weekend!

Week 6

This was our final week in Mexico City and our final week as part of Make Sense Reaction for Climate. On the Monday, we had our next event - the second of a total of 3. This was the final in person event and after only one person attended the first in person event, I was quite nervous! However, in the end 8 people attended the event and seemed to have a great time! They enjoyed the step forward game, they used the information session to discuss the pros and cons with one another and with our volunteers, and they were incredibly engaged in the following workshop which asked them to note down any concerns and then discuss them with someone else with the same concerns so that we were able to work through them! 

Again, for our Wednesday event which was our online session, I was slightly nervous that no one would show up despite the success of Monday's session! Despite this, 7 people ended up attending the online session and although we were unable to run the game in the same way as in the in person sessions, the participants were still incredibly engaged! Our volunteers did such an amazing job of running both of these sessions, especially as they were very large events with a lot of people's inputs to take into account!

With the end of our final event came the end of our project! It was such an incredible experience and the final statistics were that: 

- 16 people attended online and in person
- A further 4 people requested to be sent the recording of the online session
- Over 40 organisations were contacted with the information
- So far 7 people have signed up for the biodigester waiting list
- 100% of those who gave feedback after attending would recommend the event to a friend 
- 100% gave the event a rating of 9/10 or 10/10

To close the project, we then took part in the closing event on the Friday evening! We were able to invite our organisations and our volunteers to present to them what we had achieved and to celebrate the end of the project. We had drinks, dancing (Becca taught us to ceilidh dance to Cotton Eye Joe), and we even ventured up to the eighth floor where we saw the beautiful CDMX skyline. There were also more than a few tears because of how much we were going to miss one another when we left Mexico City the following day! 

The following day, we ended our trip the way it began and went for a quick visit to Chapultepec Zoo to say goodbye to the city. That evening, Becca, Saranya, Zuza, Saskia and I boarded our plane back to the UK. It was the end to such an incredible trip and I already miss the people that I got to spend so much time with. That being said, we already have plans to visit each other as much as possible! Despite some of the set backs and issues, this month truly was incredible and I leave it feeling entirely accomplished, satisfied with the work we have been able to do to fight climate change, and feeling as though I now have many more life long friendships!