- “marhaba” in Morocco! Lets experience the social side of working with SAP.
SAP Social Sabbatical is unique program offered to its top talent, which intends to support social enterprises and non-profit organisations in addressing their strategic & operational challenges by leveraging skills and expertise of the participants.
Through this industry leading, unique Social Sabbatical (SoSa) program. SAP provides employees an opportunity to work in a completely different environment, culture and country, in the process helping employees strengthen their competencies, collaboration and leadership skills while enhancing cultural awareness, and enable them to gain stronger understanding of emerging markets and the social sector. In the process, it offers employees a unique opportunity to experience a multicultural, hands-on, and challenging work environment & assignment in a foreign country.
About 8 months ago, we as a team of 12 started our preparation for a month of SoSa in Casablanca, Morocco, scheduled for a four-week period from October 6th to November 4th 2023. Preparation includes 6 weekly pre-work sessions held online which helped us to get to know each other, helped bond us a team, know our assigned organization and expected SOW at a higher level, get comfortable with host organization, culture of the assignment country, how to manage the logistics involved while preparing for the assignment, before travel, during and after travel. The whole journey from being selected for SoSa until you land in host country was a marathon in itself, and was planned amazingly well for by our partner pyxera global, led by Angel and Alex and local expert Narjic all of whom did a phenomenal jon to ensure that there are no open questions when we land in Morocco. Huge shout out to the team of PYXERA Global and mentor for our group @Krampe, Juliane who not only shared her own SoSa experience from Uganda, but also help all questions from the team on SoSa.
We all landed on Morocco on Saturday the 7th Oct and were comfortably picked from the airport & dropped to our hotel (Apartments) where we would stay for next 4 weeks. Next day (though Sunday 😊) was packed with onboarding sessions, explaining the host organization, local dos and donts, giving us local tour to help us get comfortable with day to day needs, team building and bonding exercises helping us to get to know each other well in person for the 1st time. A day well spent. !!
1st day of the week, we all went to SAP Morocco office, where we met all 4 houst organizations (group of 12 was divided in 4 teams assigned to 4 different organization). Angel shared overview of SoSa, while Juliane shared SAPs CSR overview and vision. Each host organization presented themselves, the work they do and how we can help them. Post this each group went with their host organization to get started with 4 week long assignment.
This blog wont be complete without talking about my 2 incredibly talented and awesome team mates Avalon and Andre, both of whom are super energetic, data geeks and great to work with. In the first week, we worked with some amazing colleagues from Jadara Foundation, met President of Jadara, met few Jadara partners, beneficiaries, alumni which gave us an insight into how Jadara functions, and the incredible work that Jadara is doing. JADARA Foundation is a non-profit association recognized as being a general public utility, acts to ensure access to a quality education for all young people to succeed in their life project despite their delicate socio- economic situation which restricts their empowerment and development.
The first week that you spend with your host organization is probably the most difficult one, because despite all the initial efforts (i.e. before you arrive on-site) to discuss the scope of your work, your client’s expectations and what is feasible to achieve in 4 weeks are likely to be miles apart. As we know, the devil is always in the details that we need to discuss, document and review — and discuss and document and review again — and again. Be as open, transparent and realistic with your client to ensure that all stakeholders are in alignment and there is no confusion down the line. And is super important to create the needed clarity and to produce positive results. That’s what each team tries to do in week 1 and by the end of the week everyone should know the deliverables at the end of week 4.
While work started to get serious and intense, team starts enjoying the journey with exploring new places for lunches/dinners, possibility of cooking once in a while, catching up in the evenings for a drink or exploring the neighbourhoods. One of the pleasant surprises for the whole group was a dinner invite by owner of one of the host organization “Moroc Impact” to her place (no less than a “palace”) for a “grand” dinner, making the evening memorable for all of us. THANKYOU . While we all started getting settled with our assignment, host organization, having fun with rest of the colleagues / team(s), everyone was waiting / planning for the weekend to start exploring the city, country, culture and travel.
Over the weekend, day 1 was spent exploring the old city of Casablanca which has lot of history and cultural. It’s a beautiful mix of old and modern culture, with tons of restaurants of all countries. After we spent visiting the grand mosque “ Hassan II Mosque which is simply magnificent, grand and an architectural marvel. Day 2 of weekend, we decided to goto city of Tangier for a day tour. We took the bullet train with max speed of 316 kmps, fastest train i have travelled so far :). It’s a beautiful city with a port, long coastline and just 45 mins from Spain across the sea.
Can’t wait to get started with week 2!!!
SAP Social Sabbatical SAP Casablanca Morocco Jadara Foundation PYXERA Global
