In the land of the blue dragon — From Namaste to Xin Chao!
Time flies! It seems like yesterday when last May I came to know that I was eligible to apply for a 1 month duration SAP Social Sabbatical, and then contemplating for a week finally decided to apply! After the selection process, it was communicated in July that I have been selected and that I will go to Vietnam in April 2017 to work on a social project supporting a social enterprise! Sounds interesting? What is a Social Enterprise? Well, Social Enterprises tackle social problems or rather grave issues plaguing the society. It applies commercial strategies to maximize improvements in human and environment well being — this may include maximizing social impact along with profits for external stakeholders. They strive to improve communities, people’s lives and environment. They are not same as charitable organizations. They make their money by selling their goods and services in the open market, but they reinvest their profits back into the business or local community. And so when they profit, the society profits. SAP’s vision is to make the world better and improve people’s lives. And the ways of making that possible is by helping in initiatives to educate the youth on digital technology, enabling young entrepreneurs who will in turn create more jobs and help people move above the poverty line and also by supporting initiative for clean environment, smart cities, health care, etc.
Social Sabbatical, like other initiatives from SAP CSR e.g. Month of Service is an excellent opportunity for SAP and its employees to give back to the society and make our vision a reality. SAP partners with Pyxera Global, an internationally known organization facilitating Corporate Volunteering and Pro Bono initiatives. Pyxera works in partnership with SAP CSR to choose the right clients whose visions are on similar lines to SAP’s and who would really stand to gain from such a pro bono initiative. Pyxera also takes the responsibility to prepare us for our Social Sabbatical. Weekly pre-work sessions for the participants took place for 6 weeks prior to the start of the social sabbatical. The group chosen is really diverse — 12 colleagues representing 10 nationalities and who can speak in 10 different languages and each one from a different Line of Business makes the entire experience even more enriching. In the course of the pre-work we were informed about the client details with whom we will work and the 12 member team was distributed into 4 sub-teams of 3 each to work with each client. I am part of a team which will work for a client called G.A.P. Institute. More about the client in subsequent blogs. We had the privilege to have a call with the CEO and the Operations Lead of the client before the Social Sabbatical started and that helped to know each other better and also to get the initial understanding of our project SoW.
After all the preparations and anticipation, we finally arrived in Ho Chi Minh City on 1st April, 2017. I had a glitch on the way as the airline misplaced my luggage and it took an additional day for it to arrive, but overall it has been a great experience so far since reaching HCM City / Saigon — team bonding, knowing each other, meeting local people, negotiating the traffic on the streets and thus remembering about back home in Bangalore are all part of the experience. Thanks to my previous manager who let me apply for the program and my present manager who is considerate enough to allow me to have this great opportunity in spite of I undergoing a transition to a new role at work very recently. Also, thanks to my family for being confident enough to manage things at home without me for a month so that I can avail this opportunity. :-)
The next stories in this blog about my Social Sabbatical experience will be structured to represent various facets of the game of cricket which happens to be one of my passions and like a 2nd religion for most Indians. Also since our Social Sabbatical overlaps with the 1st month of the Indian Premier League 2017 when India as an entire nation will be drowned in the cricket frenzy, thought it appropriate to find a link between my social sabbatical and cricket.
So, watch out for my next story on “Pitch Inspection and Pitch Report”
For those of you who are not familiar with the game of cricket, its rules and terminologies, refer to the cricket wiki: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cricket
