Amna Usmani's reflections on her Practicum (Summer 2026)

Reflections

by Amna Usmani, McMaster, Canada

I am deeply grateful for the opportunity I’ve had to be involved in this practicum with UiT and bLYSs. It has been an incredible learning experience, not only about equitable and relational approaches to storytelling and planetary health, but also about what it means to become a global community, to show up with empathy and care in all aspects of this work, across borders, time zones, and diverse cultures, and to understand that we are all connected through the water, no matter how we know and love the ocean. In my learning plan for this practicum, I emphasized learning how to create spaces for community-building, knowledge sharing, and co-creation. This learning has been foundational to every aspect of this practicum. Through my involvement in planning the bLYSs conference, I learned how planning such an event involved not just logistics around materials and attendees, but thinking critically about how the materials may communicate transdisciplinary and transcultural understandings of the ocean (such as the “Different Words, Interconnected Meanings” page of the booklet) and how the space and schedule itself may foster opportunities for connection and community (for example, how breaks themselves became further opportunities for reflection and sharing, and how different materials in the conference space provided opportunities to connect and co-create). Another goal included learning how to communicate complex ideas and relationships in accessible and engaging ways through different storytelling strategies. This has also been significant to this practicum experience. In preparing the booklet and materials for the conference, the goal was to communicate our relationship to the ocean and to each other not only through words but through visuals, activities, and opportunities for individual and collective reflection. This learning continued into the post-conference, reporting phase of this practicum, where we not only created a report highlighting the main learnings from the conference, but also a video sharing the stories from Gaza, Sinai, and Songea. Accessibility and engaging storytelling were core aspects of the planning around this video and all deliverables across this practicum. Finally, this practicum also provided me with the opportunity to continue developing my professionalism and communication skills in my ultimate goal of becoming a more confident global health student across various different contexts, languages, and disciplines. Through interacting with folks from various different professional and cultural backgrounds who contributed their own diverse understandings and lived experiences around the ocean to shaping the co-creation process, I continued to learn how to not only communicate my own experiences but also listen deeply and incorporate others’ stories, expertise, and experiences into developing a more global, empathetic, and transdisciplinary understanding of the ocean. Overall, as I now get ready to leave Tromsø and think back to not only just this past summer, but the past year that I have spent thinking about this work, I feel immensely grateful. I have learned that there is so much power in coming together to tell stories, reflect, and envision brighter and bluer futures. I think it is important that I end this reflection by sitting with and expressing this gratitude, though words may not fully capture the profound impact being involved with this work has had on me. Thank you to both the UiT bLYSs community and the McMaster Global Health community for welcoming me into spaces so deeply centred around care, connection, and stories, and for encouraging me to grow as a storyteller myself. Thank you to every facilitator and attendee from the conference, and to everyone who has been or continues to be involved in this work, for letting me envision ocean futures with you and reminding me how deeply interconnected we are, to the world and to each other. Thank you to my practicum partner and friend, Jessica Liebmann, for sharing your stories of connection to the ocean and for sharing this experience with me. From planning conference materials and navigating countless details together to sharing this experience of living in Tromsø, I am so grateful to have had the opportunity to learn from and alongside you. And finally, thank you to my supervisor and mentor throughout this work, Dr. Margherita Paola Poto, for welcoming me into the bLYSs community and for everything you have taught me. Working with you has profoundly changed the way I think about storytelling, community, and the world around us. Every lesson, story, conversation, and moment of connection throughout this practicum has shaped me into a more thoughtful emerging global health professional, and I know I will continue to learn from them long after I leave Tromsø.

Amna in Kvaløya, Summer 2026. Photo credit: Jessica Liebmann.

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This blogpost can be cited as: Reflections, by Amna Usmani, 21 August, 2026.