The Global Fund For Children

Sharing Buzz En Route to the Opportunity Collaboration Retreat

• By Vineeta Gupta on October 15th, 2010
• Category: Blog, Latin America and the Caribbean

Ixtapa, Mexico – I just arrived at Ixtapa, Mexico, to attend the Opportunity Collaboration. This four-day retreat will allow a variety of professionals, including social entrepreneurs, nonprofit leaders, funders, and social investors, to engage in problem solving and strategic conversations and solutions concerning poverty alleviation. The conference hopes to bring together individuals from different sectors to convene, connect, and create.

“I keep hearing about this conference. What is it?” asked a woman standing next to me on the bus from the boarding gate at the Mexico City airport to the small plane to Ixtapa. “Everyone at the gate and now in the bus is talking to each other—do you all know each other?” she asked further. Melanie, another delegate going to the Opportunity Collaboration, and I looked at each other and smiled. We collectively explained the conference in a quick three minutes to the woman, who was a tourist heading to Ixtapa, a resort city. Her question made me think at many levels—the information and collaborations are already happening, even before reaching the conference venue. The extroverted nature of most people in the social change sector, their hunger for sharing, their enthusiasm about collaboration possibilities and new opportunities, and their excitement at the break from their routines to discuss some fundamental questions related to their mission and everyday work—in addition to their meeting people in person who have just been names on emails—were all part of this loud buzz, a collection of various conversations happening at the boarding gate, on the bus, and in the small plane to Ixtapa.

Buzzing with my own excitement, I walked out of the plane at Ixtapa and shared the plans for the next day with my GFC colleague Hoa Duong. I am looking forward to the next four days!