Reflections on the First Day by Ray Fitzgerald (2019)
The Global Health Fellows 2018 Summer Retreat began at 9:00 AM on August 7th. The day began with warm greetings around the room, and an icebreaker led by Ingrid. The icebreaker consisted of a homemade volleyball with various questions being passed around the room. It was a great way to get everyone more comfortable talking to each other again after a long summer. Soon after the icebreaker, the 19’s presented the work that was done in Belize this summer to everyone, with an ongoing discussion about how we can improve our ideas and tackle issues we faced while in Belize. Everyone was doing an amazing job of contributing to the conversation on what will be best for the future of our work in Belize.
After a short break, we began a group discussion on the book Factfulness, a book that all the Fellows read this summer that discusses 10 instincts that a majority of people have that distort their view on certain issues that impact people around the globe. Ingrid began the discussion with a few opening questions and discussion points, and then everyone split up into groups of two or three. Each group then travelled from senior to senior to discuss the different chapters. I personally believe that everyone got a lot out of these discussions, and I was very impressed with how intrigued everyone was with this book, and we all hope to keep this discussion going in the future.
The 19’s then led the group through a practice run of a presentation that they would be giving later in the retreat to Chemonics. This presentation ran through who we are and what we have done in the past as well as our plans for the future. The younger cohorts gave very insightful feedback, with some help from Mrs. Goodson and Mrs. Hall. Soon after the presentation and feedback Andrew did a quick run through of some packing reminders, as well as overview of the week ahead.
Lunch consisted of some amazing food, courtesy of the Munn family! While the 20’s and 21’s ate, the 19’s had a working lunch with Mrs. Livingston to discuss and work on their senior Addendums to supplement their college applications. Once lunch was over, everyone packed up and began the trip to Escape Room for a team building activity. During this activity, everyone split up into their cohorts and were ‘locked’ in a room for an hour and given clues and riddles to solve in order to get out. The 19’s were the only ones to get out in time, but the team work shown by all three cohorts was very impressive. Overall, it was an amazing start to a great 2018 Global Health Fellows Retreat!