I penned this towards the end of 2018 after attending a workshop in France. I reflected on how my year went and particularly the experience of the colab experience.
Attending the Colab enabled me to readjust my lens of focus. I recall at News Year Eve, putting on the top of my list, in large letters “FOCUS”. I believed strongly it was great that I had many passions and interests and projects. But I had realised that I was no superhero. It wasn’t the wide scope of my impact activities that spoke to me. It was my burnouts, many sporadic burnouts.
What happens most often with New Year Goals as the months pass by is the tendency to compromise. It starts with a tiny assurance we give to ourselves about doing the very thing we want to avoid just ‘once’ or belittle it as ‘tiny’ that won’t hurt anyone. I had told myself to focus on working towards what I wanted to do after school; my social enterprise and my research work that was also linked to that social enterprise. I wanted to make sure it was helping at least 5 more farmers come December.
But by June, I was travelling to rural areas as a brand ambassador to visit young children and educate them on the need to maintain healthy gums. I had also signed up as a volunteer for a company as a digital marketer and juggling consultancy for my father’s business. It seems like I had done a 360-degree turn and walked away from my project. I had postponed several meetings with potential partners and investors and had simply starred opportunities for grants on my web browser.
Then I applied for Colab.
At the Colab
I was very curious about meeting other people like me who were passionate and skilled, managed to transport what they had into a vehicle that could positively affect others. I also wondered if I would be selected.
“Travelling helps you to rethink. Sometimes you need a different environment to evaluate what is important to you. Make sure to write down what comes to you.” my boss told me before I left. The Global Solvers Workshop, dubbed Co-Lab 489 UN-Limited was an assembling of 20 changemakers in their communities. In the 6-day experience, I had with participants from 10 countries, excluding mine (Ghana), I was able to bond, learn and most importantly reshape my vision for my social impact.
In what seemed like a whirlwind of days passing by, I discovered first the significance and impact of culture from the workshop sessions on intercultural communication, cultural competency and the interconnection of goals. I got to ‘live’ out the sessions as well; mingling with the participants from across the world, listening to they talk about their work, countries, working with them on various tasks and most importantly walking through the streets of Aubervilliers and Paris.
By the third day of the Colab, we had moved sessions to Villa Mais d’Ici, a beautiful co-working space for various artists. It was the perfect setting to engage in sessions to follow with its beautiful gardens, connected outdoor spaces and many rooms. There, we discussed what had occurred to us in the previous sessions: what we learnt, what we saw and how we felt. I noticed how all the participants contributed unique perspectives on a particular experience. It occurred to me that we were inclined to see and describe along the lines of what was familiar. An example was my team’s visit to Les Poussières, a local arts working space that was preparing for its largest event: the community annual lantern festival. The Ghanaians in the group immediately identified with the canes being used as they are many sold here. So they asked questions about where the canes were cultivated and sold in France.
That tendency begun to change in the following days as design thinking sessions pushed us out our comfort zones. Finding context in providing a solution was my second lesson. It is easy to look a problem and suggest what you believe to be an answer. In fact, it was the go to response for almost all the participants when Victor, the facilitator for the session introduced a picture of schoolchildren under a tree and asked us what we thought they needed. We suggested a classroom, desks, a board but no one thought to ask ‘them’- the children, the teachers, the community what they needed.
Context meant listening to what your client, the user needs and wants. With that in mind, we designed wallets and purses for each other in the human centred design session. The importance of culture in emboldening identity and unifying us all was brazen in my mind as we shared in the fun of cultural night that evening. We danced, told stories and shared food from our countries.
I remember breaking down in tears during the Hero’s Journey. It was embarrassing to cry over a reflection of my journey of growth. But sometimes, I can’t believe at how far I had come, how many people my team and I had helped and the lives we had changed. I had also mused over the negativity and the difficulty that I surmounted. Then I felt better. I felt more hopeful for what is to come.
I shared what the hope I felt was at the last session of the Colab in the park. As we lay cards the represented how we felt as we were leaving back to our home countries, I spoke of how committed we needed to be as global citizens and look forward to the greater impact of our work to come-using the positivity to ride over our challenges and fears.
I left Colab feeling hopeful, and very focused on what I wanted to do. From the sessions and conversations, I had, I realized my social enterprise would have a greater impact in empowering the children of the fish farmers we helped, particularly the female fish farmers.
Although my time spent doing other things earlier in the year has come of use, (because of my journeys to rural areas, I knew where to find the children that needed help most and the digital marketing tools I wielded from volunteering was a great platform), Colab taught the urgency for which I needed to focus on my work as a changemaker.
