Our final day of the program was today, and let me say, it was far more eventful than any of us had ever dreamed it would be. From innovation proposals to half the program ending up with food poisoning, it certainly turned out to be a very memorable day. I was one of the fortunate ones, along with Elaine and Talia, who managed to escape the food poisoning epidemic. After a lot of discussion and retracing everyone's steps for the past day at our closing dinner, we’re about 85% confident that the sandwiches we ate at DANS the day before were probably the culprit. Those of us who didn’t end up with food poisoning noticed that most of us had also had upset stomachs since yesterday as well, which adds to the case it was those sandwiches.
Before the very eventful afternoon, we started off the morning by heading to De Zuster, our conference center, that was a short walk from the hotel. After some struggle with the AV equipment, we all settled in to give our final innovation proposals for the program. Our group was up second on the agenda to accommodate for one of the students who needed to head straight from the presentation to catch a flight. Our group chose to do our innovation proposal on developing a program to support homeless mothers. The meat of the proposal was comprised of offering free childcare at the Seattle Children’s Museum while the mothers could participate in a 7 week job and life skills workshop.
If I’m being honest, this was a pretty stressful week leading up to the proposal in terms of group work. We had some personal conflicts that impacted some of the group work, but ultimately by the end of the week we were able to put some of it aside and created a finished product that all of us were very proud of. Last night was the first time we had come together as a group to run the entire presentation through in full and after we finished we realized that we had a really awesome project that is something that we could realistically pitch to the Seattle Children’s Museum if we wanted to. While we may have spent a lot more time working on the project than the other groups, I think for us it really showed that we had thought about the idea deeply and from a multitude of perspectives before pitching it. I am very proud of the fact that we developed a great idea that was both practical and strongly linked to the things we discussed and learning about during the program.
As with any proposal and presentation, there were areas of it that weren’t perfect and things that I would have loved to explore a little bit deeper if we had been given more time to present. The first thing that Rose brought up in her commentary after our presentation was that better linking the mission statement of the Seattle Children’s Museum to our innovation proposal would just help strengthen the rationale for the proposal just that much more. When I presented on their current initiatives, I did mention that they specifically support Passport 2 Play and the Museums for All Initiative because it is part of their values, but I do agree that being really specific about the exact ways the proposal fit the Seattle Children’s Museum mission statement would make for a stronger case for the proposal. This is one of those things that I think falls under the category of if we had unlimited time to present, it is something I would definitely include in the proposal. Elaine and I would have also taken a significantly larger amount of time to educate everyone about the statistics of homelessness in Seattle in general and for single mothers because we felt understanding this population was essential to understanding why the proposal is important.
Overall, despite having some speed bumps and frustrations along the way, I had a fantastic experience throughout the program. Having the opportunity to travel to three different countries in the past month has taught me a lot about both the world and myself. I think having the chance to really be independent and find your way in a place that is so different from anything you have ever experienced is simply an amazing and unique experience. I also left the program knowing that some of these people will be my friends for the rest of my life. Talia, Kletia, Elaine and I have already started planning our return trip to Europe after we graduate from college. It is hard to believe how fast an entire month goes and that it feels like it was just yesterday that the program started. I am very grateful for the experience that I had over this past month and I am excited to bring back everything that I have learned to the rest of my time at the University of Washington.