Reflections on the Impact of the International Visitor Leadership Program - Diane Elton

Reflections on the Impact of the International Visitor Leadership Program - Diane Elton

A couple years ago we had the honor of having women from Iran. The topic discussion in the United States was entrepreneurship. They were clearly at the end of their journey when they reached our city and the story I will be telling is about their last day of their trip in our community. They enjoyed each other's company. They had had a good exchange throughout the experience, it was multi-generation, younger to older. They looked out for each other, they were bursting out in song, I had no idea what was going on in Persian in Farsi, but I could tell they were having a good time.

We were going out to the desert to visit a local tribe that had diversified its economic plan, in California a lot of the tribes were focusing their finances around casinos and gambling and this group had been one of the first to diversify. So we finished those types of meetings and went onto more of a cultural part of the visit, it's the Malki Museum, which was founded by a colleague of mine that I knew through working with the Girl Scouts. So we get to the museum, have a little bit of a tour, go off into an auxiliary room because we needed to keep the elder a little bit warmer, there was heat in that room. It was a natural discussion circle that had formed, the elder started telling her story of empowerment and her journey of leadership, rapt attention throughout, and then I started noticing this one woman just looking around the room, and then she just sort of focused. I could tell we had been sitting for too long and she as we broke she got up and walked straight over to a display case that was open and picked up a robe, a blanket, and I thought uh-oh we've touched something that we shouldn't because I heard all this commotion ... well it turned out is that the design of the blanket was very much like the design of her indigenous minority in Persian culture. She had been a little bit more quiet, perhaps not the leader of the group, what happened then is that all of a sudden the elder came over to her and said, well you like this, and that's how the story came about, this woman was just elevated in eyes in front of the entire group because the elder focused on her solely. At that point they started talking about being raised and the ultimate gift, the ultimate gift that the elder could give was to sing what was called a "Bird Song" and she did in honor of their spiritual connectedness. This was a time when there were no cameras allowed whatsoever so what happened was for me was this life changing moment was through heart and soul. And that's what I know about the IVLP program is that it just brings these incredible moments of connectedness to all of us.