Compassion, Collaboration and COVID-19

Passionate Meryl Williams Fellow Dr Melinda Moata is wasting little time applying the valuable leadership lessons she's learning. And she's not the only one to benefit.

A senior lecturer at State Agricultural Polytechnic of Kupang, Melinda is one of the first Meryl William Fellows and describes her participation in an intensive Gender Equity in Agriculture Research for Development (GEAReD) workshop at UNE in February as "life-changing".

Returning to her Indonesian homeland, Melinda was emboldened, and eager to employ her new-found skills to effect positive change. Within weeks, she had been appointed vice-director IV, responsible for promotion, community relations and collaboration, and the outbreak of COVID-19 was soon highlighting her strengths.

"One of the first things I realised when I went back to my role is that I have a different leadership style to my director and the other three vice-directors," Melinda says. "The fellowship has taught me that I am an influencer who likes to consider other people and make them happy, so I tend to focus on connecting and involving people."

This approach - and her resolve - was challenged when promotions at her institution became the subject of public scrutiny. However, her heart "has a strong voice". Instead of succumbing to the pressure, Melinda concentrated on setting a good example. She also found the courage to discuss the importance of aligning personal values in professional teams, and behaving in accordance with them.

"I was very scared to raise this, but luckily our director and the other leaders respected what I had to say and have agreed to change some of their approaches," Melinda says.

"Aligning our values will take time, but we have started the process. It proved to me that steps we may think are hard or even impossible may not be as hard as we think."

Having had some time to absorb the powerful GEAReD workshop, Melinda is formulating ways her new ideas and skills might benefit her workplace. She dreams of establishing a smart agriculture station akin to UNE's SMART Farms, but, for now, is intent on improving communication and co-operation within the groups she heads.

"Publication is the way we can let people know about the many good things we have done and to seek to influence others to make positive change," Melinda says. "In my new role, I will use all kinds of media and networking to promote our staff, alumni, teaching and community service activities."

Quite unexpectedly, COVID-19 provided an ideal chance for Melinda to begin this process. When her agricultural institution decided it wanted to support over-worked staff and vulnerable patients at W.Z. Yohanes Hospital, a coronavirus referral hospital. So Melinda consulted each of them and coordinated a wonderful collaborative response.

"Our fields were full of vegetables ready to be harvested and students could not sell them at the markets, which had been closed down," she says. "At the hospital, doctors, nurses and patients needed healthy food to boost their immune systems in the wake of coronavirus. So we thought to supply the hospital with some of our produce."

Students harvested kangkung (a fast-growing water spinach) and eggplant, and within days were making deliveries to the hospital, careful to observe all the necessary health protocols.

"Many of the hospital staff are so busy that they forget to eat," Melinda says. "This was the first time they had received food aid and they were very thankful. Many of the students who usually sell the produce are from poor farming families and so my dryland farming department offered to pay them for the food they had grown.

"We will keep doing this during the pandemic, helping other hospitals as we harvest other commodities. It's a small and simple thing, but it has big impacts for all those affected by COVID-19, including our students, who can continue to learn and earn some money."

Future collaboration with the hospital, and expansion of Melinda's professional networks have been other valuable spin-offs of the initiative, which featured on Indonesian television and was shared on Facebook. "I am really happy because my personal value is to make other people happy," Melinda says. "Aligning my personal values with those of my institution is helping others and helping to make ours a better institution."

Even preparing for the television interviews drew on the self-assurance Melinda discovered during her Armidale visit. "It's simple, but dressing more assertively yet femininely gives me confidence," she says.

"Wearing my ACIAR pin also reminds me that I am an ambassador for the Meryl Williams Fellowship, and helps keep that spirit in my heart. I am very proud to be a fellow; it has changed my life."

The prestigious Meryl Williams Fellowship is funded by ACIAR and supports female international agricultural researchers and scientists across the Indo-Pacific to improve their leadership and management skills.  Applications for the 2021 intake close 31 July, 2020. Click here for more information.

Story by Amanda Burdon