July 1: The Beginning of the LC 2019

This potentially transformational experience started early for 11 students in the Indian subcontinent who made their way to Mumbai from Rajasthan, Andhra Pradesh, Jharkhand, Karnataka, Assam, West Bengal, and Kathmandu to be met by their 360Plus hosts  Mohit and Tabiz. In a few hours  Stefani from Varna, Bulgaria will fly to Sofia to join up with Monica to take the flights to  Mumbai. On the way they will meet with their current e-friends (through 3 months of Google Hangouts ) Tahani and Ezz Edeen from Lebanon and Syria in Qatar and make their own way to Mumbai. Oriannah will leave her home in Madagascar to make her solo way to Mumbai.  At the same time and a few hours earlier or later 19 US based (including one from Mexico) students  will make their way to their local airport in California, Louisiana, South Carolina, Oregon, New York, Massachusetts, Florida, etc to board, for many of them their first  flight experience, to Chicago to  join up with the others and their leaders – Eli, Rougye, Ana – to take the longer flights via Munich to Mumbai. In the meantime a cohort of 5 students from Johannesburg and Cape Town will gather in the former city to make their own way to Mumbai with their mentor Cedric. Lastly Tracking all of these from north India will be Caitlin who manages the data and technology infrastructure which supports this annual temporary migration. The Leadership Collective 2019 would have begun. 

Putting an experience like this on the road is a logistical challenge compounded by the the age range of our students. Each student requires a customized set of processes to address their specific needs from getting passports and travel consents for students to convincing schools to allow students to miss a few days. We are able to bring this degree of attention to each student because of the effort put in by the dedicated team of 360Plus Leaders, Mentors, Hosts etc. We at 360Plus are indeed fortunate that so many members of our network give their time to help us.

Shortly after midnight of July 2nd all the 40 students will be together and their on-site experience will begin. This will build on the pre- departure assignments they have been involved in for the past three months around the theme of Youth Citizenship. Over the three weeks they will be in India around Mumbai, Ahmedabad, and Delhi the students, now divided into three separate groups, would discuss, visit, reflect and create their own toolkit to support community involvement in their home geographies. By presenting them with the opportunity to meet with and work alongside Young Citizen activists in diverse fields from Education / Social Change /Climate/  etc with sub themes around minority rights including caste/LGBTQ etc we hope that these 40 young leaders will go on to become responsible Global Citizens.

We at 360Plus thank all our sponsors, friends, well wishers, mentors and partners. Without your help none of this would be possible.