Our first retreat: building a real team in a remote world

In November 2025, the Vitala team met in person for the first time in Cartagena, Colombia.

Until then, everything we had built together — Aya Contigo, our community work, our internal systems, our care practices — had been held entirely by a remote team. Across countries, time zones, political realities and very different daily lives, we had learned how to collaborate through screens. And in many ways, remote work gave us something powerful: flexibility, diversity, the ability to bring together people from different places, cultures, and experiences. That diversity deeply shapes our work and the way we design Aya.

But something was missing.

No matter how many Zoom calls we held, no matter how intentional we tried to be with check-ins and virtual spaces, we were missing hugs. We were missing shared laughter. We were missing the small, unplanned moments — the hallway conversations, the “how are you really?” at lunch, the chance encounters that turn colleagues into something more human.

For a mostly Latin American team, this absence mattered even more. Our cultures are deeply rooted in community, in closeness, in celebration, in talking and touching and being together. Virtual work can’t fully hold that.

Before Cartagena, we were doing our best to stay connected, but the pace of working in sexual and reproductive health — in a world where politics, crises, and threats change constantly — meant that urgency often came before connection. There were communication gaps. Teams working in parallel, sometimes without fully knowing each other’s daily realities. There was also uncertainty about where we were going next, strategically and organizationally.

So Cartagena wasn’t just a nice trip. It was something we needed.

Arriving together

Even before we met, the trip carried tension and care. People were arriving from different countries, with different visa situations, different risks. We had chosen Colombia partly because it made those crossings easier — but that didn’t stop us from checking in constantly: Did you make it through immigration? Are you safe? Did you land?

And then, suddenly, we were there.

Our first evening together was a cocktail by the Caribbean coast. Wind, heat, laughter, hugs. So many hugs. We finally got to see each other in three dimensions — and of course, there were jokes: “I thought you were taller.” “I thought you were shorter.” After years of Zoom squares, reality felt almost surreal.

Some people had just come from the International Conference on Family Planning. Some were exhausted from long journeys. Some were buzzing with stories. All of us were just happy to be together. The heat was intense — but so was the warmth between us.

That first sunset by the sea, talking about life, work, and everything in between, was something no Zoom room could ever recreate.

What only happens in person

We had a schedule. We had strategy sessions. We had team presentations, where each group shared what they had achieved, what they were proud of, and what they had learned that year. And even in those formal moments, something became immediately clear: we didn’t actually know enough about each other’s work.

Listening to other teams describe their daily realities, their challenges, their wins, was not only moving, it was necessary. We realized how much more we needed to understand each other if we were going to build something coherent, ethical, and truly collaborative.

There was laughter. A lot of it. We are, after all, a group of mostly Latina women who can talk for hours. But there were also tears. One of our colleagues, our dear Isa, who had spent years building Vitala with us, was finishing her cycle in the organization. We honored her work, her care, her emotional labor, her brilliance. That moment of collective gratitude was part of our strategic work too — because organizations are not just plans and metrics. They are people.

In the evenings, we walked through Cartagena’s historic center. We shared dinners. We learned about the city’s history. A board member invited us into her home. And late at night, back at the hotel, we would sit in the lobby with beers before going to sleep.

One of those nights stays with me deeply. Our Venezuelan team told us about their lives: about activism under increasing repression, about friends who had become political prisoners, about the pain of watching loved ones migrate, about holding on to hope while everything feels fragile.

That kind of sharing doesn’t happen on Zoom. You need the room. The silence. The eye contact. The shared breathing. You need to be able to cry and be held and to hold others.

A political act of care

In a world of endless virtual meetings, permanent urgency, and nonprofit burnout, choosing to gather physically is almost an act of resistance.

Remote work opens doors — especially for Global South teams — but embodiment matters. Being together allows us to listen differently, to soften, to feel each other’s realities beyond what is safe to type into a chat. For a team working in sexual and reproductive rights, this matters profoundly. We cannot talk about bodies, autonomy, migration, disability, or care in abstraction. We need to know each other. We need to be close enough to understand what those words actually mean in real lives.

Cartagena reminded us that cybersecurity protocols and digital safety are necessary — but so is the space to speak freely, to breathe, to be human together.

What changed after

Two months after returning, I can already see the difference.

Decisions are more horizontal. Conversations about impact, about who our users really are, about how to measure what matters — they are deeper and more grounded. We have been able to take steps that I truly believe would not have happened if we had stayed only online.

The team feels more united. Long-term strategy feels clearer. Not because we suddenly became more “efficient,” but because we became more real with each other.

You can’t do communications, fundraising, or product design in silos when you’ve sat at the same breakfast table. When you’ve walked the same beach. When you know what your colleague carries inside.

Why this must be recurrent

If Cartagena were the only time we ever did this, we would slowly lose what we built there.

Retreats are not a luxury. They are part of the work. Especially in organizations that exist for social impact, we cannot serve communities while forgetting our own humanity. And in a tech nonprofit like Vitala, where we design tools for people living in radically different realities, we need these moments of reconnection to stay honest.

Trust, depth, and shared vision don’t come from Slack threads. They come from being together, again and again.

The image I carry

When I think of Cartagena, I don’t think first of meetings or workshops.

I think of breakfast.

The first day, one small table. The next day, two. Then three. By the third morning, whoever woke up first would go find a big table, because we all knew we wanted to start the day together.

Sitting there, sleepy, laughing, sharing food, slowly waking up as a group — that was Vitala, for me. And I miss it already.