U-Lead Panama Preview #2

Well, it's almost time! Two more days until we fly down to Panama city. As we're working to finish out our midterm exams and get the heck out of school, we're also trying to tie up any loose ends for U-Lead Panama. Planning has been narrowed down, and now we're just making sure we are packing everything up. We can't forget anything! Yet another conference call scheduled for Saturday morning. It goes without saying that  we're extremely excited to do our part to spread the growth of student volunteerism while going on a pretty cool trip to Central America.

Here's another sneak peak of what we have in store for students at the U-Lead conference: Day two will be centered around teaching the students about the Operation Smile medical mission experience. Since all four of us have had the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to go abroad as a high school student educator on an Operation Smile medical mission, we're going to do our share to encourage student involvement in Panama. Each of our lives was changed in a profound way by our experience. A mission experience is something that one can never forget. In-country support is crucial to the success of a mission because only in-country volunteers completely understand the culture and language they are working in. Students in Panama have many more opportunities than American students to attend and support medical missions, so we want to make sure they are excited to go and ready to help where they can. We'll have guest speakers who have significant experience on missions who can share their stories in Spanish (we are trying to have bi-lingual conference since no hablamos espanol). We'll also be teaching learning modals to teach children on medical missions such a nutrition and dental hygiene. This information can have a life saving effect on a child's life, and students at the U-Lead conference will be given the opportunity to practice presenting these modals in a children's wing of a hospital. We will also emphasize the crucial role of telling your story. Since mission opportunities are so limited, especially for American students, we fully understand the vital importance of spreading the story of that experience with those around you to inspire change. Teaching students how to share their experience in a meaningful way that inspires others is a significant step in giving these Panamanian students the tools to inspire waves of change.