Lisbon pavements (make the world a better place 2)

Posted on February 28, 2014 by wordpressgrethe

Lisbon pavements.
Wherever you go in Lisbon; beautiful pavements are all around or should I say: all under your feet! It is a joy to walk in this city. They really make the world a better place. Still, many houses are neglected, old and falling apart. But people are working hard, renovating, rebuilding, all that is needed to make the houses – many of them monuments – look as beautiful as the pavements are. Then this city will be one big impressive treasure of different, yet unique styles. Lisbon has class and history, it shows in great refinement of details and in the gentle manners of its citizens. What a pleasure to be here 🙂

Read other blogs in the theme ‘make the world a better place’
Lisbon walking
Warsaw Christmas lights

Lisbon walking (make the world a better place 1)

Posted on February 27, 2014 by wordpressgrethe

Lisbon walking.

Often, the idea to make the world a better place to live in, makes us think of great and revolutionary ideas. What I like about Lisbon is that they make the world a better place just by adding high quality details into daily life.
I don’t know where you live, but I guess the pavement in your city or village is just an ordinary thing; a bunch of stones, maybe low, maybe high quality stone but nevertheless: just stones. It does not really add to the quality of your life.Lisbon is different. The Portuguese understand that quality of life is experienced precisely through daily details like the pavement we walk on. Look at the pictures: aren’t they adorable? It is a joy to walk there! And it is clear that these pavements were made by craftsmen who really enjoyed to deliver a piece of art to the many customers they would have after finishing their job; thousands of passengers feel better just by trotting on the paths they laid. Thanks to all to visionaries to improve daily life!

Read other blogs in the theme ‘make the world a better place’
Lisbon pavements
Warsaw Christmas lights

Never ever give up

Posted on September 3, 2013 by wordpressgrethe

‘Never ever give up’, a special English friend said to me during the first years of my company. I remember that I told him how much initiatives I took to have more customers and that the phone was so silent… He was very empathic with his reaction ‘yes and then you sit down in despair and think nobody is ever going to contact your company again‘ and he surprised me so much there.

He was a selfmade multimillionaire, I was staying in his ‘house’ (I don’t know how to call a place like that) overlooking the Mediterranean and having parties like I never had before and still he was so down-to-earth that he fully understood my problem as a beginning entrepreneur. He had lived it all himself I guess which felt like a consolation and he could only advice me what had been the best recipe for himself: ‘never give up’.

All this came back to me when I watched Diana Nyad who reached Florida beach after three days swimming starting from Cuba: an amazing and most incredible action. She was not just swimming from Cuba to Florida to set a record, she is setting a major message: ‘never, ever give up’ is her motto. Apparently she is a late believer in realising dreams, as she explains in a most interesting Ted presentation after her 4th attempt to cross that sea full of sharks and jelly fishes: on.ted.com/Nyad and before this recent 5th and finally succesfull attempt. Watch that speech, it is amazing!

She was almost 60 years old when she decided to transform the discontent she felt about herself, about the things she did not do or not change, into the realisation of the dream she had had since 30 years. She failed 4 times, she succeeded yesterday and the first wisdom she spread when she could talk again – apparently it is pretty exhausting, to cross a sea swimming 🙂 – was: ‘never, ever give up’.

Also very beautiful: http://a.abcnews.com/images/US/ht_diana_nyad_jef_120820_wg.jpg
For me her age of 64 years adds to the message, as the crossing of a sea while swimming is rather expected (by me at least) from a young strong person than from an elderly person. ‘You are never too old’, Diana Nyad tells us in her speech and she is right. We usually find too many excuses not to fulfill our dreams and to give up… Mankind is blessed with special people that encourage us to follow our dreams and never, ever give up; may they be blessed too!

Diversity in hotels; it exists in Stockholm!

Posted on August 9, 2012 by wordpressgrethe

Diversity in hotels: it exists in Stockholm!

All women who travel frequently for business will recognize what I experienced: most hotels are somehow similar, ‘efficiently’ organized, coloured in white/cream combined with black or brown, in one word: predictable – which is nice -, but boring – which is a poor contribution to the joy of life. The more a hotel is ‘business’, the more urgently Pay TV is brought to the customers attention. I have no specific opinion about men watching Pay TV but I do not want to be confronted with it when I travel for work. Finding a big sign to advertise Pay TV in the middle of my bed when I enter a new hotel is an absolute minus point for me and I never return to that hotel. Why don’t they bother to just find out whether the new customer is going to be man or woman? Is that against the rules of ‘efficiency’ in business hotels?
Stockholm proves how different this can be! The Collector’s Hotels offer a completely different environment. The hotels are full of antiques in all colours, live paintings turn the walls into something special and beautiful and many details are taken care of: from a special gift to the customer arriving until little cards on the breakfast tables with interesting quiz questions about Sweden. I felt at home in this hotel from the very first minute, it is nice and comfortable to travel like this!
The Hotel info says: “we are convinced that our chain of hotels are in step with times” and “Personality and history is scarce in the hotel business; but we feel that there is a lot more that we can do to change that“. They announce they might expand outside of Stockholm and even outside of Sweden. I think their concept would be real added value in Amsterdam. When they start a hotel in my home city, I will be the first to advertise it! It’s great when you see that people in a ‘standard’ business have the vision and the courage to introduce diversity…

Other blogs you might like to read:
Forget about the rules. Be human.
Travels with Herodotus
South Korean wisdom
Japanese looters

When inclusiveness met apartheid…

Posted on August 1, 2012 by wordpressgrethe

When inclusiveness met apartheid

In our last workshop at Stephanos Foundation today, participants looked for role models in change and innovation. They came up with a list that is different from what European groups would make, except for Mandela: he is always everywhere present in the list of role models participants come up with.
Afterwards one of the managers told me that Malawi did not deal with South Africa in the apartheid period the same way other African countries did. The first president of Malawi Mr. Banda was in favour of dialogue, much in line with the inclusiveness that I experienced in Malawi during the last ten days. While other countries boycotted South Africa, Mr. Banda refused to stop his contacts and met with the president of South Africa. But when he did that, he made a statement. He helt a black child on one hand, a white child on the other hand and like that he showed that all humans are equal and that that would be the way forward also for South Africa. Mr. Banda got political ennemies in several African countries because of his vision, my manager told me, but he had a vision that suited Malawian culture and did not give it up. Later, he might have become more like a dictator, but for this attitude towards South Africa he can be considered as a role model.
I think I learned at least as much as the managers of Stephanos Foundation who followed my workshops. For me, it was like presenting familiar themes and practices in a completely unfamiliar context. Maybe it could have been better if I had known more about the local context – on the other hand, this might have been the key for interaction and participation of the managers, as I asked explicitly for their help at the beginning.
One thing is for sure, themes like culture, diversity, change, innovation and even project planning don’t differ per country: only the context differs – and the language was not an easy step to take. The workshops were highly appreciated and I highly appreciated to be given this opportunity that was really ‘out of the box’ for me. Not easy, but very rewarding!

Other blogs about Malawi culture:
President in the warm heart of Africa
Pigs, kids, and why it works in Malawi
Creative use of waterpipes in Zomba

Pigs, kids, and why it works in Malawi

Posted on July 27, 2012 by wordpressgrethe

On the south side of Blantyre, the Stephanos Foundation runs a project that is based on participation of villagers and their empowerment. Many people work in the tea plantations that cover the hills in the area: in good days, the wages can be 600 kwacha(= 1,70 euro) per day. Workers of Stephanos sat together with the community to find out how to improve their situation and this is how the pig-project took shape. Isn’t that a great way of working?! This is what the community wanted and so this is what they were going to do. So different from projects that start from the idea of the donors, and what donors think should be done and paid for…
9 female and 2 male pigs were given to the community as a start. The female pigs are given to a child that has to take care of it; when the child is at school there is a watchman (usually woman). The male pigs go around to do their favorite thing and this is how young pigs are created. In general, a pig gets 6 young ones. 2 young ones are given away to other children to make the project grow, the rest can stay at the house where they were born. Now in a few years time, already 300 children are participating in this program. A committee that has a real constitution and a serious chair is overviewing the project and making decisions.
The value of a pig is 5 times more than a goat, between 42 and 57 euro. Compare that to the income the tea plantations offer…! So now children can fund their school fee for secondary education because of the pigs. And their surroundings are profiting too. There is already more money than necessary, so the committee decided to invest in agriculture. It was their idea, not the idea of Stephanos.
Stephanos offers the encouragement and the knowledge input for what the committee wants. And they offered a pump for water that can be handled by feet (so no need for electricity, oil or whatever that will make the pump stop when there is no cash money – very practical). The villagers have made a beautiful field where over 10.000 oignons are growing now. One oignon can be sold at a price of 30-40 kwacha (say 10 eurocents). So next October they expect a big profit… and it might be invested again.
This project is not a Millennium Village: there was no ‘integrated total approach’ of things, no fancy barn, no mechanical work on the fields, no manager. But it has a very good chance to be sustainable because all of it is run by the community itself in the first place – and it is affordable without donor because the people run their own business and don’t rely on the donor’s money.
I like to add one thing, and that is that I found the villages we passed very clean. The reason could be that this is a different area, with even a different tribe, but it was striking the eye (also when I went ‘at random’ to the toilet in one of the houses) and I do think it matters. Consciousness of health and hygiene, even in poverty, is a great asset for self-esteem and development. The sheds for the pigs were well made and looked after. Animals can stink and reduce the pleasure of living at a place, but this was not at all the case because the cages were also well maintained.
Photographs above: the pigs in their cage, and a girl who is the happy owner of a pig, with her watch(wo)man (green shirt) on her side, and the field with the oignons.

More about this theme in Malawi that you might want to read:
Millennium Village Southern Malawi
Aid for orphans in Malawi
Dead Aid in Malawi
What people in Zimbabwe learned (and will Malawi follow?)

Zomba: creative use of waterpipes

Posted on July 26, 2012 by wordpressgrethe

Zomba, Malawi: waterpipes were sent here by a donor in order to help create a better draining system. Part of those waterpipes – that by the way are a very good quality and quite expensive – found another destination as you can see on the picture above, they will never serve a draining system. Well, at least the water pipes in Zomba were not just thrown away…
Some people suggest that systems like Western Europe has, cannot work here in Malawi anyway. For example something will get broken halfway the draining system and there will be no one or no money to repair it. So then all of the street or maybe even all of the village will stay without a good draining system. A more individual or ‘serial’ approach would do better than a community system. Could be true.
A thought that comes to my mind all the time is how creative people are here in Malawi. They might not use the products the way the ‘western world’ does, but they find new ways to use them for things that apparently matter to them and that are also lacking: just like the waterpipes in Zomba. If that creativity would be combined with a (long term) business attitude, what would we see happening in Malawi!

Other blogs about creativity you might like:
Vlinderado: creating your dream
Visages Villages: brilliance of the normal

More about Malawi:
Majete Wild lifeReserve
Malawi Fever Tree
President in the warm heart of Africa

Van Waveren Tapes make you shiver…

Posted on July 5, 2012 by wordpressgrethe

Van Waveren Tapes form a strange and highly intriguing documentary. I went to the cinema to see it, just because I read the story of its creation in a newspaper. A guy bought a lot of tapes on one of our famous Dutch flee markets, the Waterloo Plein in Amsterdam, and discovered a life story that played mainly in the years ’70 and ’80. The tapes were made by someone who taped many or maybe all of his phone conversations and who also talked to his tapes just for himself. Who would buy tapes like that? And who would be able to make a movie out of it? A guy like that is 100% original and a great artist!

Like in a detective, the story unfolds step by step. When you watch this documentary, you realize that the scenes are not spoken by actors, but real life conversations. It made me shiver to enter this closely into a personal and rather tragic life. The maker did an extremely good job: this movie keeps your attention until the very last minute… and it makes you think about life in an extraordinary way.

When I tried to reserve cards for the cinema, the girl at the phone told me ‘it is not necessary because nobody will show up’. Then she corrected herself and said ‘it will not be very busy’. Indeed there appeared to be only nine of us in total. All of us very impressed and very enthusiast. Don’t miss it. This is not the kind of thing you can see every day!

Other documentaries you are probably interested in:
Visages villages: the brilliance of the normal
The hunt for my father
Taxi Teheran

Creating your dream: Efteling

Posted on January 6, 2011 by wordpressgrethe

Creating your dream: Efteling

Yesterday me and my colleagues visited this beautiful Dutch Park called Efteling, in January even more attractive as Winter Efteling. It started as a project in 1952 to create in real life what was designed by Anton Pieck in his rather romantic drawings: a park with fairy tales and fantasy houses and castles.

I visited that park already as a small child with my parents with hundreds of other people. Nowadays, they are millions to come and see and enjoy, and the Efteling has grown, flourished and created so much more fairies and dreams.

As an entrepreneur it is encouraging to see what can evolve from initiatives when creative people have a dream and dare to make that come true in reality. Everybody dreams but the steps to creating your dreams in reality are often not made or proven unsuccessful. It must have been a very risk taking business for a person who’s core quality was drawing and designing, not running a park whatsoever – but he did it and it became a wonderful parc to visit for people from all over the world.

So my wishes for 2011 for everybody including myself is: may this be the best year for creating your dream and may millions enjoy it!

Grethe van Geffen

culture and diversity

Category Archives: Creativity and dreams