(This post was written in July 2025!)

Over the next six weeks, I will be completing a central Leadership in Action project with Makesense in Mexico City, collaborating with the organisation Las Sabinas on an initiative to empower survivors of gender-based violence in the local area, as well as promote resistance against this issue. I am particularly looking forward to working with my teammates, Holly Toombs from the University of Oxford, and Jezlyn Montas from Barnard College, as well as getting to know the other Laidlaw scholars working with Makesense in Mexico City this summer!

My teammates and I will be working with Las Sabinas on their ‘Florenciendo sobre Ruedas’ project, meaning ‘Blooming on Wheels’, a scheme which seeks to empower and support survivors of sexual violence through running rollerblading sessions, as a means for survivors to reconnect with their bodies and practice self-care as well as collective care. Our goal is to assist Las Sabinas in promoting their project through social media, building campaigns on Instagram and TikTok to raise awareness and expand their volunteer base. 

Our main goal, as defined by Makesense at the beginning of the project, is to integrate narrative and communication proposals throughout Las Sabinas’ various social media and other online channels. This goal has been identified as a prominent priority for Las Sabinas, with the return of ‘Florenciendo sobre Ruedas’ later this year, and so most of our content will focus on this scheme. 

To achieve this goal, my group and I, in discussion with the team at Las Sabinas, have identified some objectives that we can work towards in order to support our wider objective. Las Sabinas suggested that we produce a puppet, to become the face of ‘Florenciendo sobre Ruedas’, which our group is particularly excited to get working on. As someone who loves getting involved in arts and crafts, I am pleased that I will get to bring this passion into my Leadership in Action project. We will also be coordinating a team of local community members to produce social media content for the project, as well as producing some videos and posts ourselves. 

To fully immerse ourselves in the project and its aims, our team is also looking forward to getting involved in some rollerblading lessons led by Las Sabinas! Whilst this was initially somewhat terrifying to me, as someone who is very clumsy and who can barely coordinate herself without being on wheels, I am excited to give it a go!

As mentioned previously, the ideal outcome of this project will be to have created a meaningful and impactful social media campaign in collaboration with Las Sabinas, to promote their ‘Floreciendo sobre Ruedas’ initiative. I am really looking forward to my next few weeks in Mexico City and excited to see where our project will take us!