Thirty-four participants and eleven mentors hailing from more than 20 countries met in Quito, Ecuador, in August for five days of team-building and skills development in food safety leadership.
The gathering was the first of four international modules that will take place as part of the Executive Leadership in Food Safety (ELFS) course, a two-year collaboration among the Global Initiative for Food Systems Leadership (GIFSL), the Inter-American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture (IICA), and other partners. The course’s goal is to shape leaders to improve food safety in the Americas.
“What we were envisioning with this module was to create an awareness within the participants about the importance of implementing public-private partnerships to develop successful initiatives,” said program coordinator Ana Marisa Cordero Peña, agricultural health and food safety specialist with IICA.
The focus for the event was globalization and building collaborations. Participants met each other, went over program goals and procedures, participated in interdisciplinary team–building and networking activities, heard speakers from government agencies and the private sector, and took part in leadership skill development and active listening sessions. Helping them through the process were mentors from IICA, FDA, GIFSL, the University of Minnesota, Food Safety, the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO), the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, and the University of Chile.
“It was a wonderful experience,” says University of Minnesota veterinary public health resident Brendan Lee. Lee is from the Caribbean and plans to carry out a course project that will benefit that region. “I’m looking forward to upcoming modules and seeing new friends one more time,” he says.
In addition to participating in the sessions, participants will also work with mentors to design and implement projects at the interface of food safety and leadership, applying the leadership and technical skills they are developing as ELFS participants. Participants and mentors will stay in touch via the Internet in between sessions.
GIFSL will host the second module in Minnesota in June 2010. The topic of the second module will be food safety systems, public health, and the agrifood chain.
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