Today, the story Im sharing is about collaboration, creativity, leadership and purpose. As a Chevening Alumni, when coming back to Guatemala, Ive found myself surrounded by amazing Alumni leaders that were already making a positive impact in Guatemala. What we needed is to merge our voices into one.
So the question here was, In a country with pretty complex problems exists, how might we connect Chevening Alumni in Guatemala and build together a strategic plan to impact positively Guatemala? We started by applying for the Chevening Alumni Program Fund (CAPF) and got it! The fund helped us design an event, where the Alumni met each other and co-created the purpose of the Association.
With the funding we hosted a workshop using The World Cafe Method, where we invited Alumni to connect, collaborate and co-create.
If you are familiarised with the World Cafe method this may sound more familiar to you, but if you aren't, I will explain briefly. Replicating the idea that you are in a Coffee Shop, we organised the location and created different tables. Participants were rotating around the tables and were discussing, per table, a specific question. Each table has a moderator, and at the end we were able to compile everyone's input into the four questions we outlined.
The insights for the questions helped us create a series of videos and testimonials that we are going to use to spread the word about the Chevening Scholarship and the Chevening Alumni Association Guatemala.
My favourite part, and its key to any co-creational approach, is the opportunity where everyone is able to share their ideas and inputs. For that reason, after The World Cafe session, we hosted a brainstorming session where all the participants shared what they wanted to do within the Association.
The project took us almost a year to design, execute and implement, but at the end we felt proud with the results, because, like any co-creational approach, it was something that everyone felt part of, it was an Association with a common goal, a goal set by everyone.
We also hosted a launch event where we shared the results and officially launched our video campaign in Social Media, by sharing with the guests the videos and plans for 2019.