The Final Convening, the last learning event for current year Fellows to meet before officially joining the wider CMB/EI Community, offered the 2025 Fellows an opportunity to look back on a year that unfolded across multiple geographies and learning contexts. Over the past year, Fellows engaged in learning events in Hue, Cape Town, London, Oxford, Bali, Yogyakarta, Kupang, and Luang Prabang, before finishing in Bangkok. Each experience was designed to surface different histories, perspectives, and approaches to advancing equity .

Together, these experiences deepened Fellows’ understanding of how inequity is shaped by place, power, and lived experience, while strengthening the relationships and trust that underpin the Fellowship. The Final Convening created time to connect these moments and to reflect not only on what was learned, but on how Fellows themselves had changed.

Fellows gather in front of the Mirror Foundation

The week opened with site visits to community-based organizations in Thailand, grounding reflection in lived experience. Divided into two groups, Fellows visited The Mirror Foundation and MUTUAL to learn directly from practitioners translating mission-driven work into effective, equity-oriented practice. The Mirror Foundation works alongside people experiencing homelessness and other vulnerable groups to develop practical, dignity-centered solutions that support access to work, health care, and long-term stability. Sandra Suryadana (2025, Indonesia) said “Visiting the Mirror Foundation opened my eyes to how huge social entrepreneurship can be. It gave me a vision of how good intentions, when combined with efficient and sustained hard work, can lead to meaningful solutions to inequity at many levels.” 

MUTUAL on the other hand works to seek common ground in the context of diverse perspectives of gender, age, ethnicity, and ways of seeing the world. Their work centers on building empathy to create common understanding on contentious issues. Phua Wee Seng  (2025, Singapore) reflected “It is very motivating to find a partner in Mutual who could put the voice of our vulnerable groups out to connect with the audience. The deep understanding of the community they serve and impact they made is profound.”

These immersive visits connected theory to reality, offering practical approaches, tools, and partnership models relevant to Fellows’ Second Year Projects. Through facilitated discussion, Q&A, and structured reflection, Fellows considered how community-led work can inform their own leadership and implementation efforts moving forward.

Adisorn Juntrasook (2023, Thailand) facilitating structured reflection on the Induction Year

The cohort later reconvened for an Induction Year Wrap-up session facilitated by EI Senior Fellow Adisorn Juntrasook (2023, Thailand). Using five photographs that captured meaningful moments from the year, Fellows engaged in creative expression and collective reflection, synthesizing insights from a journey that spanned countries, disciplines, and personal growth. Reflecting on the Induction Year, Alfred Poon Jun Haw (2025, Singapore) said “I don’t think the fellowship improved my career in a traditional way, but I started reflecting on my career through the fellowship itself, and I actually left a career I was in for over twenty years and tried to realign my career with what I truly value as who I am.”

As the convening progressed, attention turned toward what comes next. Fellows were introduced to the Fellowship’s lifelong community phase, including opportunities for continued learning, cross-cohort collaboration, funding support, and sustained engagement beyond the formal program.

Fellows were also formally welcomed into the Atlantic Fellows Global Community through an orientation led by Owen Valentine, Director of Community Engagement and Global Impact at the Atlantic Institute. Joining a global network of seven fellowship programs, Fellows reflected on their shared responsibility to advance fairer, healthier, and more inclusive societies across regions.

A Fellow holding up 'Connection' during a reflection on what they need to do more of.

Fellows completed a Year-End Survey and Self-Reflection which was an independently written exercise designed to support thoughtful assessment of personal growth over the induction year. The process invited Fellows to pause, evaluate how their leadership practices and perspectives had evolved, and articulate priorities for the work ahead. “Calling myself a Senior EI Fellow feels unreal, I didn’t just join a program, I found home. It leaves me curious and hopeful about how this home might hold bigger ideas, deeper care, and shared action” Ferena Debineva (2025, Indonesia) said about her experience overall.

Taken together, the Final Convening created space to hold the year in full: its learning journeys, relationships, and moments of challenge and change. As Fellows moved forward, they did so with a clearer sense of what they carry with them, and how they will continue to put equity-centered leadership into practice beyond the Fellowship.

A group picture of the 2025 EI Fellows

A group picture of the 2025 EI Fellows facing backwards showing their cohort hoody