(The photos attached are from the Noche de Deteccion event.)

For my summer of Leadership-in-Action, I went to Mexico City with the organization make_sense and engaged in a Community Empowerment project. Alongside my teammates and a make_sense project leader, I worked with the organization Inspira Cambio, helping to execute a “Noche de Deteccion”, and a testimonial video. Among other reasons, the work we performed with Inspira was significant in that it raised money for the organization to continue their services, and it helped us as scholars to realize the privileges we have in access to healthcare. Through this project, I developed my skills in communication, collaboration, and self-advocacy.

During my time in Mexico City and the work that we undertook, I faced some challenges that I was not expecting to encounter. While I really enjoyed working with my teammates, Izzy from the University of York, and Ola from University College London, on this project for Inspira Cambio, it did prove more difficult than I expected to jump into work with people I had just met. As individuals, we all brought our own unique life experiences and our different cultures to the table as we began to work together. We each had our own viewpoints on how to go about the project, and our own ideas on how to work together as a team. For myself, I tried to approach each teammate with knowledge and respect for individual perspectives. I reminded myself that the work culture where I am from in Canada is different than in other countries, and to be mindful of these differences when discussing the project with my teammates. I employed my communication skills in order to determine what each of us expected from this experience, and how we wanted to reach these expectations. This was very helpful in understanding how to work alongside each other to achieve the overarching goal. While communication was not always easy, I felt that it was very beneficial to us in the long run. We were able to see quickly and clearly what ideas and experiences we could all contribute to the project. I think this saved us from arguments down the road, as it allowed me to recognize the work styles of my teammates, and for me to share my own.

 Overall, I believe that our project with Inspira Cambio was successful; however, it could have turned out very differently to what our end result was. When we met with Inspira Cambio during our first week in Mexico City, we were told that they were hoping for us to produce eight posts for social media as our project. Although we were happy to help them make posts for social media, I think that we all felt as though there was something more that we could be doing. After all, we had six weeks to produce these posts, and with three girls who each had experience in production for social media, we felt like we could finish that very quickly. After taking a day to reflect, I brought it to my teammates that I felt like we could offer more to Inspira. One of my teammates agreed, while the other was more hesitant, but we all agreed that we should approach them with some new ideas that could be done completely independently, including creating testimonial videos for social media, or a virtual fundraising campaign. We pitched this idea to our project leader with make_sense, and she presented it to Inspira at our next meeting. I think we were all surprised and excited when they said that we could actually help them by planning one of their events, Noche de Deteccion. We were all grateful that they allowed us to organize this event. Noche de Deteccion is a monthly event held by Inspira, where people in need of testing for Sexually Transmitted Infections can access their services for discounted prices, generally outside of working hours, and are able to stay for a party afterwards. The event was so much fun to plan and execute, and we raised over $7000 MX for Inspira. Ultimately, this project showed me that there is value in self-advocacy. I am not always comfortable with confrontation, even if it is just to pitch a new idea for a project. Nonetheless, I had to work through this discomfort in order to help my team advocate for a more involved project, which actually turned out very well. I think I can speak on behalf of myself and my teammates when I say that we are all so grateful to Inspira for their openness to our ideas, and the trust they put in us to plan such an important event.

As our project turned in to the planning of Noche de Deteccion, we also had a new objective to create a testimonial video celebrating ten years of Inspira. This was the part where our collaboration skills were put to the test, and I think I can safely say that we all passed. Izzy, Ola, and I worked together on writing testimonial questions, filming the clips, and putting everything together. As I edited the clips and put them into the software, Ola worked on translations, Izzy worked on audio, and we all came together to make everything fit into place. I think we all employed our collaborative skills in order to get the job done. It required the delegation of tasks between the three of us, and efficient work so we could produce a video in a short time span. At the beginning of each work day, we sat down to discuss what we had completed the day before, what needed to be done that day, and how we were on track to achieve our goals. This system worked really well, as it allowed us to see a bigger picture of what we had accomplished, and to assign ourselves tasks in order to stay on track. At times, we all felt the pressure of a looming deadline and lots of things to finish. It was sometimes difficult to collaborate on the video when multiple people weren’t able to work on it at the same time, but we remained resolute with communicating our needs to one another. We collaborated by trading off workloads and responsibilities, sharing ideas, and staying up to date with one another about what we were each working on. At the end of it all, I’m proud to say that we produced a 15-minute-long testimonial video for Inspira. It was very well-received when we played it at the Noche de Deteccion. I’m proud of my team for the way we worked alongside each other, and the video that we made.

My time in Mexico threw challenges in my way, at the same time as I was given an enriching, fulfilling, and transformative experience. Through the difficulties we faced, I learned how effectively a team can be if they value communication and collaboration in all aspects of work. Moreover, I further developed my self-advocacy capabilities, and reinforced my belief that if done in a respectful way, lots of good can come out of it. As I embark on new leadership opportunities with my university this year, I will use these skills to create similarly rewarding experiences. As my LiA comes to a close, I want to thank the Laidlaw Scholars Foundation, the team at make_sense Americas, and the University of Toronto Laidlaw Scholars Programme for granting me the opportunity to work with amazing people and a wonderful organization.