Principles: Make time for yourself
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What grows after a hard season
Dear Reader,
I’ve been doing a lot of reflecting this fall. Some of it came from work that took me back to earlier chapters of my life: Syria, where I lived for a while between 2008 and 2011, and Ethiopia, where I visited fistula hospitals in 2015. You can read about both below.
The Minerva team also got together here in Chicago to see friends and clients and take stock of the past year. And with the days getting shorter, we put together our fall syllabus of what we’re reading, watching, and listening to. You can check that out below as well.
Mostly, though, I reflect because that’s what I do when the world shifts this erratically. I gather myself so I’m ready for whatever comes next.
And a lot is coming. We have an election soon, and with it a chance to push back against an administration that dismantled global aid and is driving up diseases like HIV and polio around the world. An administration that has used brutal immigration enforcement against immigrant families and citizens, further restricted the rights of women, nonbinary, and trans people, and pulled us into another war.
When things feel this bleak, I think about the seasons. It’s full fall in Chicago. The leaves are at peak color and the air is crisp. I love this time of year, but it’s also when living things begin to wither. Leaves fall, and the last tomatoes split on the vine and drop into the garden bed, where they’ll break down into compost for spring.
It’s this last part I’ve been holding onto. Everything that comes up in spring starts from what went into the ground before winter. Even something rotten can prepare us for new growth.
Change is coming. It always does. What grows next depends on what we put in the ground now: a vote for decency, a call to Congress, a gift to a midwifery clinic, a positive story about an immigrant family passed along at the dinner table.
Join us in preparing the ground for new growth.
With hope,
Sara Veltkamp
Partner and Vice President, Minerva Strategies
Ending fistula for good
Sara’s 2015 visit to an Ethiopian maternity ward has a new meaning after Minerva helped two obstetric fistula organizations merge and launch as Maternal Dignity Project. Read more →
Hope for rebuilding Syria
At the MedGlobal conference in Chicago, Sara learned how Syria is rebuilding and came back with three ways anyone can help.
Read more →
Minerva’s fall syllabus
A novel told in letters, an Emmy-winning horror-comedy, and the podcasts our team keeps going back to.
