One Hundred Dollars Against El Niño

On the 23rd we fought through Bengaluru’s famously terrible traffic to reach the Reap Benefit team — and arrived to find ourselves reintroduced. New roles: government officials and citizens of different countries, handed one very real problem to solve together — El Niño — with a $100 budget and a real-time tool to test whether each plan was actually feasible and effective.

Over a samosa-and-chai break we kept wrestling with it, and closed the activity with reflections. Somewhere in the role-play, two lessons had landed at once: El Niño as a phenomenon, and leadership — the kind that looks completely different depending on the role you’re wearing.

A day of new roles, responsibilities and challenges that slowly turned into lessons — and a lot of gratitude towards each other.

After a yummy, authentic lunch at the Reap Benefit office, we spent the second half of the session reflecting on our whole 360+ journey — and turning the morning’s energy into something real. We committed to actual initiatives: a youth-driven Sunday drive for cleanliness, and longer-term plans for the two weeks after we each get home.

We ended the day with heartfelt shout-outs to the people we wanted to appreciate — and a photograph where we each stood in the part of the room that matched our country, together forming a living map of the world. New roles, new potential we didn’t know we had, and a whole lot of gratitude.