Unpacking the connections
By Patricia
[A]s a result of this trip, I am committed to engaging in conversations about systemic solutions—about how my energy idea can help your education curriculum; how your investing platform can support my conservation efforts; and how we can support these endeavors with public policy. I’m excited to think about my work from the perspective of how it can help tackle problems outside my function, industry, or sector, and look forward to finding ways to help others do the same.
Our days in South Africa were thoughtfully organized into topics: a day for education, another for public health, conservation, social justice and so on. These themes afforded our group the opportunity to establish a perspective for the day and build our understanding from one visit to the next. For example, our conversation with the World Health Organization one morning provided a strong foundation for understanding how the HIV self-testing work of Wits RHI, our afternoon visit, supports the broader health policy and outcome objectives of the WHO.
Similarly, our trip to the Apartheid Museum and visit with Diversity Consultant Nene Molefi illustrated not only the rise and fall of Apartheid, but also the ongoing diversity and inclusion work taking place in schools and workplaces throughout the country to address the legacy of institutionalized segregation.
Each evening at dinner, we often reflected on each day’s theme and discussed the aspects of our visits that we most wanted to remember. The days of our trip certainly flew by and I got the sense that we all wanted to organize our thoughts from one day before preparing for the next day’s whirlwind. Now that we are back in Boston, I have been trying to breakdown the thematic ‘boxes’ of my experience in order to better understand the inextricable links between the trip themes and experiences.
We certainly had moments on the trip to discuss how the energy, health, and education challenges we saw in rural areas, for example, related to one another, how a lack of access to health care severely hampers childhood learning or workforce development. We started to feel the weight of these systematic challenges and, at times, felt outmatched. However, as a result of this trip, I am committed to engaging in conversations about systemic solutions—about how my energy idea can help your education curriculum; how your investing platform can support my conservation efforts; and how we can support these endeavors with public policy. I’m excited to think about my work from the perspective of how it can help tackle problems outside my function, industry, or sector, and look forward to finding ways to help others do the same.