“In a gentle way, you can shake the world.”
As I was looking for a good title for my blog post, this quote from Mahatma Gandhi resonated with me.
But let’s rewind to 3 weeks ago, when I started my second journey to India. This time I traveled as an SAP Social Sabbatical alumni and mentor for the next group of 12 colleagues from 9 different countries (Argentina, Brazil, China, Czech Republic, Germany, Philippines, Poland, United Kingdom, United States) that had been selected as participants for the 2020 SAP Social Sabbatical program in Mumbai, India.
Just one year earlier I had been in their shoes, as a Social Sabbatical participant in Hyderabad, India, nervous, curious but also very excited about the weeks ahead of me. This year — while in a different role — my emotions were quite comparable, however I also felt in particular grateful to have an opportunity to remain involved in this amazing program as a mentor.
As my flight from New York was about to touch down in Mumbai after close to 16 hours, several thoughts crossed my mind: What could I contribute, to make this an amazing experience for all participants, would they run into similar challenges but also enjoy this journey as much as I did and would I have another encounter with “Delhi belly”?
During the next 28 hours, all of our 12 participants arrived at the hotel, including Tom from Poland, who landed 1 day later than planned due to a typo in his visa that had to be resolved and Yang from China, who managed to arrive just a few days before India decided to revoke all e-visas for travelers from China a few days later due to the coronavirus.
Our official program started on Sunday with the initial and SAP internal orientation workshop with facilitation from the Pyxera team in our hotel in Mumbai. Ice breakers, sharing life roadmaps and personality type test results helped all participants to connect and get to know each other better. The desire to “give back” and “pay it forward” quickly emerged as common motivation and goal for participation in the program.
What makes the Social Sabbatical so meaningful is, that it enables us to connect with and put SAP’s purpose of “helping the world run better and improving people’s lives” into action by allowing employees to focus on and collaborate for 4 consecutive weeks with a pre-selected NGO, NPO or social enterprise.
Pyxera and SAP selected 4 organizations (Antarang Foundation, Masoom, Pratham InfoTech and Sol’s ARC) that work in the field of education and empowerment for children and young adults, however with different focus areas: Facilitating transition from school to work, night schools, bridging the digital divide, education, research and advocacy for special needs. All 4 organizations had passed an evaluation process to participate in the program, just like the SAP participants.
Our SAP team of 12 participants has been divided into 4 sub-teams of 3 with diversity in mind (each of the 3 colleagues coming from a different country and role), that were assigned to each of the 4 client organizations. Their first challenge: Finalize and agree on the scope of work and deliverables for the 4 week engagement. Not an easy undertaking as the clarity and breadth of the scope varied significantly between the client organizations. They will have until the end of February to work together on the agreed upon deliverables before the final presentations take place on February 28th.
Coming back to the title of my post, I personally can’t wait to see how our 12 participants and their client organizations will “shake the world” and improve people’s lives together. I hope they will immerse themselves into this experience, embrace the cultural and organizational differences, enjoy the opportunity to learn about as well as from each other and make lifelong friends and memories along the way.
The quote reminds me, that every day we have the opportunity to make a difference and a positive impact on our immediate environment and the world, no matter what our role, location or background, even if it is just small acts of kindness.
Will you join me and try to “shake the world in a gentle way”?
