My time as a Laidlaw scholar has been amazing. I’ve been given the opportunity to connect with people from all over the world, work in cross-cultural environments, and test my own approach to leadership in real-world global contexts. These experiences, along with the challenges I faced, have shaped how I understand leadership, community, and impact. 

Over the past year and a half, I’ve become more adaptable, more patient, and more confident in navigating uncertainty. Another way to put this is, my exposure as a Laidlaw scholar has made me more resilient. The programme gave me the space to step outside my comfort zone and to see that leadership is less about control and more about connection. It's about creating spaces where others around me can thrive. That is the true mark of a leader.  It gave me the space to test myself, step outside my comfort zone, and begin to see myself as a leader in the making.

My first summer focused on research at Trinity. This was my first exposure to academic research and I remember going in with so much doubt and imposter syndrome. I am grateful to have had strong support from school, family, meteors and supervisors. During this period, leadership to me was managing myself. This would mean, meaningfully set goals, deal with setbacks, and push through when my project didn't unfold as planned. It was often solitary work  but it built up my resilience. Still, these were lessons learned in isolation, within the familiar context of my university, my field, and a strong local support network.

The next summer was very very different. For my Leadership-in-Action experience, I travelled to Bahia, Brazil, where I spent six weeks working with ETIV do Brasil, a grassroots NGO in the coastal town of Itacaré. The organisation provides free educational and developmental programmes for children and young people in underserved communities. I joined their team to support youth education, focusing particularly on technology, digital literacy, and English language activities.

Stepping into this unfamiliar environment was both challenging and exciting. I was pushed to fully immerse myself in a new setting that reshaped the way I think, approach problems, and evaluate situations. It was an invaluable experience in my journey toward becoming a leader in a global context. I connected with volunteers from around the world and people from the local community, and in those moments, I truly felt like a global citizen. All of this reshaped how I see global citizenship. The term initially sounded abstract and overloaded, but in time, it came to mean something very grounded: being fully present, listening and learning from the people around you, and finding ways to contribute meaningfully in whatever space you find yourself in. And that’s what I’ll keep trying to do.