Shout Out: U-Lead India

While we are working to put together the final pieces of the conference before we leave, our College Council friends on Team India, Claire Crawford, Jake Keller, and Logan Disch, are already hard at work in Mumbai setting up their conference.  Since both U-Lead missions are pilot missions to start a broader university level initiative, we hope to learn from our successes and mistakes in our respective countries to create a foundation for the many U-Lead missions to come.

U-Lead India has the same goals at U-Lead Panama, but we have been planning separately. This reflects the fact that each U-Lead mission will cater to a different set of needs, since each foundation country has a different level of student involvement and resources. Each country is of course very different and offers a broad range of opportunities and challenges. Together, Team India and Team Panama will combine our months of work into one pool of resources for future leaders to use as they see fit. Future U-Lead Missions will be comprised of at least one College Council member with experience and a couple of strong students from the Student Programs community. Numbers will depend of the needs of each mission site, and the College Council members will work to facilitate the planning of each unique conference. Although we must admit we were initially a little intimidated by the prospect of designing our own conference without much staff involvement, U-Lead is an exciting opportunity for university students involved in Operation Smile to make a direct impact on shaping the leaders of tomorrow. Now that's pretty exciting! All seven members of the current College Council are eager to share our efforts with the broader university community and enable university students to inspire the change they want to see in the world.

Good luck, Team India! We know your conference is going to be a resounding success.
To follow their mission go to the U-Lead: Mumbai, India 2011 site.