Clean Up Dali’s Heart

“If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again.”

Writing a senior thesis about the importance of international aid from non-governmental organizations in West Africa was no easy task. Also, graduating with minor in leadership wasn’t a walk in the park like some may think. I spent so much time working on my thesis that my parents would joke and referred to my thesis as my boyfriend. “Martha, how is your boyfriend, Mr. Thesis, doing?” asked my dad on many Friday nights. My patience, persistence, and imagination were really put to the test during my last semester at the University of Minnesota.

As I handed in my senior thesis to Dr. Skaria, he told me to work on it for one more week, which brought tears in my eyes. (If at first you don’t succeed.) A week later he read it and was quite pleased with the improvement, passing me with flying colors. (Try, try again.) During my third semester of my leadership minor, the looming “group project”, a word that makes even the brightest of the college students cringe, was over half of our grade. To put it nicely, my group totally failed while giving our final presentation in front of our three main professors. We weren’t seeing the larger picture and ignored the fact that the process of the presentation was more important than the product. When Jeanee Linden asked me to add a new fun class to her sons’ curriculum in China, I jumped at the opportunity with a leadership project in mind. I thought to myself, “I might as well try, try again.”

During the early part of the fall season, the Dali Youth Leadership Group starting meeting every Friday afternoon. The five students didn’t know exactly what the class was about, but they were more than willing to try, which was more than I could have asked for. Ice-breaker activities like the human knot and blind-folded activities helped build the team’s trust and allowed everyone to become comfortable working together. The bridge that we all had to cross was working together no longer as siblings and family members, but as peers. By springtime, they were positively discussing and debating and I couldn’t have been happier.

I based our meetings and teachings off of my field experience with the Leadership Minor. The idea of this leadership project was not to find a solution to a problem, but more to create a stronger sense of community and better their neighborhood by involving people in their project. During each meeting, every student had an important role like facilitator, time keeper, recorder, encourager, and evaluator. The meetings started with their “highs and lows” of the week and then we got down to business! In the beginning, we mainly concentrated on the key elements of leadership (accountability, being engaged, responsibility, power, teamwork, etc) and waited at least a month to start thinking of their year-long project. I told the students to walk around their neighborhood and look for “problems” that they may be able to help with. They all came back that day with notes and notes about the environment and the litter all over the streets. After many debates and discussions, the students finally thought of “Clean Up Dali Day” on April 17th. They made posters with catchy slogans like “Clean Up Dali’s Heart” in English and Chinese and went around to local business to ask for donations.

“Clean Up Dali Day” was an extreme success in my eyes because we had 16 people show up to help out and there was nothing but smiles on every single volunteer’s face. We accidentally planned the day on the first day of the Third Lunar Month Festival, San Yue Jie. The streets were packed full of people and, believe me, we had plenty of trash to pick up! A week later, the students gave a presentation to their families to show them not only their main project, but also what they had learned throughout the year about leadership. Throughout my last two years of living in China, working with these students has been my proudest moment. I’m so happy that I decided to try, try again.

If you want to see their work, check out their video that they made! http://v.youku.com/v_show/id_XMjYyMTc4MjU2.html