Cohort 1 Workshops 11+12: Alumni Impact Projects

 During our past two meetings, Diller met in the beautiful preschool, Moadon Kol Hadash, to plan for our Alumni Impact projects and our upcoming overnight.

The first time we arrived in the beautiful space, we were greeted by our mentors, the group of adults that will lead and guide us as we go through the process of changing our communities in small or large ways.  We learned all about what made each of these adults so special, so willing to make all of our projects a success. To push ourselves to start thinking in a design process-mindset, we all took turns creating the perfect wallet for a partner, a product that would fit their individual needs and improve their lifestyle. Although it might have seemed like a pointless activity, nothing in Diller is ever this way and we used this model to think about our projects. We transitioned to teaching our mentors what parts of our Impact projects we had previously worked on with our smaller groups. Each group is trying to combat a unique problem we identified, anything from special needs, to voting inequality, to the lack of confidence in young girls, and much more. The mentors and groups worked together to build a plan of action for change. Some groups brainstormed ideas for their final project, while others decided whom to contact in various communities to communicate about putting the plans in action, whether they were teachers, other students, or others knowledgeable about the issues.

After the mentors left, we finished our plans for our self-management overnight. Different groups brainstormed ideas for programs about hunger. Different groups planned educational programs, programs about awareness, and a special social service program. We finished up the final details and then finished up our meeting for the day.

During the next meeting we had the wonderful opportunity to meet the new Diller Cohort at one of their first meetings. After a short introduction we taught them the “whoosh” we all love and had the chance to talk and get to know some of them. For some of us who knew members of Cohort 2, it was a chance for a warm welcome. Again, we worked on our Alumni Impact projects with our mentors as they stopped by. All the groups kept on working on our projects, thinking of who we could contact and what these ideas for change would develop into.

A delicious pizza dinner followed the project planning session. Between moments of pizza, we had time to relax, talk about our time outside of Diller, and have unstructured time as a cohort.

Finally, as we gathered back up, we all told stories about our past year. As a group, we made the final decisions about our plans during the overnight. We talked about what we wanted our trip to Israel to look like and our expectations for the rest of Diller.

During the past two meetings, a lot of progress was made with our Impact projects. Not only did we progress in our work as a group, but we also made just as many memories in the small moments as a group. Although we don’t have an infinite number of meetings left, with the connections we have, the memories we make will be sure to last much longer than the time tries to constrain us to.

By: Emily Bakal