GW PorColombia is a student organization at GW that aims to bring together students that are from Colombia, or who are simply interested in the country, in order to build a stronger Colombia from abroad through academic and professional activities. I have been involved in GW PorColombia since 2014 and continue to serve the organization. During the academic period of 2014-2015, I participated as an active member and had the opportunity to attend the National PorColombia Conference, where Colombia’s peace process was discussed with prominent figures from Colombia’s government as well as members of International Organizations, such as the Organization of American States (OAS).  Although GW Por Colombia was active at the PorColombia national conference in 2014, they ran no major events. The sense of belonging of the organization was not present on campus, and this was something I wanted to change because it was an organization representing my country. I decided then to run as Vice President for the organization and got elected by the executive board.

As Vice President of the organization, I was in charge of taking the lead with the President and executing other administrative responsibilities. However, I wanted to tackle two important points that ended up shaping my entire work as Vice-President. The first point was developing a marketing plan that would create a unity image for the organization that could eventually attract more members. We obtained a set of materials to create a stand that could bring attention and look professional wherever we placed it. I developed a plan and worked with a designer to produce a banner, a roll-up poster, and fliers to create a unified theme with the objective of passing it on to future GW PorColombia leaders. This worked well because the organization quickly went from being almost nonexistent to having nine members on the executive board and a continuously increasing number of members.