A stormy end to the week….
Well here we are, half way through our SAP Social Sabbatical in Athens and time is flying by so quickly. It’s been another great week for us at Action Finance Initiative (AFI) where we’ve continued to learn more about the world of banking and microfinance and our client. Mahmoud from our team was also lucky enough to meet one of AFI’s fantastic customers — solebike. Founded by Costas and one of AFI’s first customers, solebike offers eBike tours for visitors to Athens for a ‘different’ experience of Athens — 3,490km have been cycled since he launched and he’s seen visitors from over 45 countries. A real example of how microfinance in Greece can support entrepreneurs who want to make a difference.
All four teams are now working furiously, day and night, to start our final recommendations and deliverables for the NGOs. Idea sharing, information swapping and generally helping each other as much as we can, is something I’ve really observed this week. Starting to understand the skills we have across team, that can help us support each other to achieve our common goal. We’re all aware of the impact we can have on our clients and want to ensure that we deliver strategies and tactics that really will have a future benefit to our NGOs.
Now it’s not all work and no pleasure! A group of us visited the Acropolis this morning. Up bright and early to make sure we missed the crowds, by the time we arrived there were a few ominous clouds but it did not deter us! We’re brave.
After an insightful tour of the Acropolis and hearing about the optical illusions of the Parthenon….the stormy end to our week began. Sheltering beneath trees, finding anywhere we could to hide from the rain , the giggles started. Do we run? Do we hide? Who’s got an umbrella?
As with all the twists and turns we’ve faced with our projects, the bonds we’ve created and the laughter is what keeps us motivated and always able to find a solution.
Luckily, there is no photographic evidence of what we looked liked by the time we returned to our hotel but if you want to see more images and stories from the SAP Social Sabbatical team in Greece, I highly recommend you also follow Barbara & Anthony’s blogs:
Barbara Reis — our resident Ninja and part of Team Aephoria
Anthony Jakubiak — from SAP’s Design & User Experience team and part of Organisation Earth�
#sap #sapsocialsabbatical #athens #greece #AFI
