Team Series - Getting inspired in Dutch Land

"I am happy that you are all here, then I don't have to save the world by my own" Veronika said in our closing circle. She was one of the 20 participants on the Changemakers exchange last week in the Netherlands.

Actually, when I firstly enrolled on this event, I was not sure for what it was. I knew the organization Ashoka and I knew that the event would be about diversity and multiculturalism, but I did not know what format would it be.

Now, after an intense week of sharing and learning I can tell you that I feel blessed and ,above all, super inspired by the work of the people with whom I shared this summit.

The goal of this summit was, in the end, sharing our stories. Not only the stories of our work, but also our personal dreams and fears. It was good to be ourselves and not the project, for a while, which I initially expected to happen. We had several workshops about the theme that bound us together: diversity and dialogue. We heard about the origins of prejudice from a researcher on the topic, in Amsterdam’s Impact Hub, we shared a whole day in Otto Frank’s office (father of the famous Anne Frank), in Anne’s Frank Foundation, hearing about racism and how to deal with it. It was intense but very interesting to put such sensitive topics into different perspectives. The following days we were led to a location on the countryside where we would have some wellbeing and collaboration sessions, the main point of the summit. From gratitude walks, sharing cultural mistakes to just squeezing on blankets around the fireplace with marshmallows.

I feel blessed to have met 20 beautiful souls from Germany, France, Tunisia, England, Finland, Greece, Syria, Lebanon, Egypt, Lithuania, Georgia and Ireland. People that have a strong sparkle in their eyes for what they are doing. Sharing our deepest stories, sharing our anxieties and showing our vulnerabilities was also one of my high points in the summit. It really reminded that no matter the difficulties, we all are able to them, and as Veronika said, we are all making our piece to change the world, alone it would be difficult.

“We ourselves feel that what we are doing is just a drop in the ocean. But the ocean would be less because of that missing drop.” This quote is really resonating the feeling of this week!

Benny