Mosaic leadership program

Recently, I applied and was admitted into a leadership and diversity program that was recommended by Ms. Fleming – it was called “Mosaic” and held by Mount Holyoke College. The two-day workshop aims to delve into community diversity, inclusion, and philosophy. I applied for this workshop as I felt it would be highly beneficial to gain a broader understanding of diversity and resources in universities, it also highly relates to the school motto: “Unity in Diversity”. Furthermore, I found the idea of communicating with Mount Holyoke students on global topics to be quite intriguing, and the discussions of philosophy might provide me with new perspectives relating to TOK. Previously, I have joined similar leadership workshops like this, therefore, I was very excited to take part in Mount Holyoke’s program. In this blog entry, I will be going over the first day in which I participate in Mosaic.

Day 1:

I found the first day of Mosaic to be incredibly engaging, and it provided me with the opportunity to talk with an immensely diverse group of people on varying global issues. It was a rather small group on the call – 34 including all the teachers and Mount Holyoke College students, which I felt made the conversations feel a lot more intimate. After everyone introduced themselves, we got briefed on activism at Mount Holyoke – they focused quite a lot on bringing awareness to indigenous people, transgender communities at the college, and how Mount Holyoke speaks out against racism with conferences and campaigning.

Afterward, we were put into breakout rooms (that were, interestingly, named after strong females throughout history – I was in Frida Kahlo) where after introductions were looked at certain student-based campaigning throughout the years at Mount Holyoke. These consisted of observing certain posters and newsletter articles that promote equality for all communities. What I found to be extremely validating throughout this process was the fact that those posters were able to be inclusive to all types of minorities – no matter their race, gender, socio-economic status, body images, etc. Additionally, I was quite astounded to find out that a lot of those texts were from the ’90s, which made me compare the progression at this college in relation to other parts of the world (including Sri Lanka). It was quite remarkable to observe this level of striving for equality, especially considering that even now in Sri Lanka people are still facing monumental oppression.

I believe that I was certainly able to contribute my thoughts on the topics of discussion quite well, I also think that I was able to successfully relate the issues of my own experiences and on a more global scale. The individuals in my breakout room were exceptionally great to talk with and I believe that we all were able to bounce ideas off of each other really well, I enjoyed talking to them!

After this, we participated in an exercise to write poems about certain things that we were familiar with. Writing a poem on my identity was strangely liberating, and I did mine on Sri Lanka and the people that were close to me; which I then shared with the rest of the group. I was able to come across some exceptional writers during this workshop, I believe a lot of them truly captured their identity – one person’s poem about finding themselves and the magic of childhood really stood out to me, they almost moved me to tears!

Finally, after sharing these poems we moved to the main session and reflected a bit on how we found this workshop to be, and shared a few more poems.

That marked the end of the first day of Mosaic! Overall, I think really enjoyed this session and found it amazing to discuss with a lot of people around the world. It brought light onto many issues and perspectives that I wouldn’t have considered before, and I was definitely able to exercise my creative writing skills.

Learning outcomes:

• LO5 – Working collaboratively with others
  • This workshop definitely depended a lot on collaboration with the other people taking part, especially during the discussions. I felt that I contributed as much as I could to these conversations and engaged a lot with the others.
  • I think that I succeeded in elaborating on the ideas and perspectives of other individuals on the call and gained a lot of new knowledge and insight as a result of engrossing myself in the discussions.

• LO6 – Global engagement
  • We covered many issues during this workshop (things such as racism, oppression of LGBTQ+ individuals, gender equality, etc.) and observed real-life instances of students campaigning for progression past these issues. 
  • I was also able to hear out the experiences of students that have come across many of these issues and was able to share my own. I think that engaging with these people and gaining a deeper insight into what they have faced was quite impactful and valuable.
  • I think gaining a better understanding of certain issues and stories would be tremendously valuable when thinking about these issues by myself or writing about them for schoolwork.