My SAP Social Sabbatical Week 1

“Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself.” Leo Tolstoy

Last week I started my 4 weeks social sabbitacal in Bucharest. But let me first explain a bit more about the SAP Social Sabbatical program.

With its Social Sabbatical program, SAP goal is to support the accelerated growth of innovative NGOs (Non-Governmental Organization) and social enterprises. To reach their full potential and maximize their social impact, SAP helps them become best-run organizations by providing expertise and know-how.

For the first time, the program has been launched in Romania and the 4 selected organizations and social enterprises are looking for professional expertise to address some of their critical strategic challenges.

These challenges will be tackled by 12 top talents from SAP from all over the world. One of the strengths of this team is its diversity: these SAP employees are from or working in Philippines, Ukraine, Czech Republic, US, Germany, Korea, Canada, India, Bulgaria, Brazil, Netherland’s and Dubai with 50% women.

These 4 organizations are:

Asociatia TechSoup: an independent NGO which is part of the TechSoup Global Network. They are a capacity-building organization which provides technology resources to nonprofits, as well as to youth and educators.

Impact Hub Bucharest: offers a space with all the tools and trimmings needed to grow and develop innovative ventures. Above all, they create a space for meaningful encounters and exchanges.

Policy Center or Roma and Minorities: is committed to long term structural change in all fields of the society, aiming to tackle poverty in marginalized Roma communities across Romania and the European Union.

Progress Foundation Romania: is one of the legacy organizations of the Biblionet Program founded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Over the past 2 years, they have invested in the development of over 1/3 of the country libraries of Romania.

Amazing first week

The SAP Social Sabbatical program sets us up on teams of three, and typically puts us all outside of our comfort-zone where we need to learn and stretch. I’ve met already lots of interesting people, followed many leads, and learned from colleagues, customers and through Google😉. We arrived last Monday at our client’s office with high expectations. Impact HUB Bucharest wants to increase the quality of their services and give entrepreneurs the right tools to grow their business faster with high impact. Together with colleagues Mariia and Christopher, we are providing better insights into their customer journey. But even more importantly we are currently looking into their branding, to see how they are received by the local market. During these 4 weeks we are keen to leave an impact full experience behind us.

On a more personal note

This week I’ve spent more time in the gym since years! As former PE teacher(!) I’m dedicated to live a more healthy life starting with regular exercises in the gym, healthy food and drinking more water during the day. The short term results are positive, I’ve lost some weight already (compare the photo above and below) and feeling more energized. Looks like this is the way to go🏃🏼‍♂️.

Some facts so far:

• Walking on grass fields in Bucharest will not be appreciated.
• Most local people are speaking good English.
• Local food is tasty, wines surprisingly good
• Uber is present and cheap

It’s Sunday afternoon by now, so I’m going to prepare myself for the FIFA World cup final. Good luck to all my friends from France and Croatia.

Week 1 done, 3 more to go.