I have just completed the first week of my SAP Social Sabbatical assignment in Nairobi, Kenya. I am living this great experience with other 11 SAP employees from the most diverse backgrounds, areas and locations. We are divided in 4 groups and each group is working in different companies that are making the difference for the economy progress and life quality in the country.
Pyxera Global and SAP have made an amazing job in preparing us for this journey. During the 8 weeks prior to our departure we´ve had weekly meetings to get to know each other, our destination and the companies where we would be working in. Upon our arrival we had a full day of team building activities and, in addition, some informal chats and dinners.
My team´s scope of work consists in building a CRM strategy for a company named Open Capital. Our customer is a consulting firm that supports high impact businesses in East Africa to raise capital and grow their companies. We are using Design Thinking Methodology to understand the needs of our customer and I have been learning a lot along the process.
On last Saturday, April 12th, we visited an orphanage in Nairobi. For me it was the best experience so far. They support 137 children, from which 45 actually live in the orphanage. The team who runs the place showed us the facilities and talked about how things work there, the difficulties and plans for the future. Although living in very hard conditions the children showed all the time an inspiring hope in their eyes and happiness in their smiles. This experience made me feel thankful for all the opportunities I have and also to desire to make more to assure that children like them also have good opportunities in their lives.
During these days I have also noticed some general interesting facts in the city, one of them is about how chaotic the traffic can be. No one respects the traffic lights or other traffic signs and people drive on the roadside on an attempt to escape from the traffic jam.
I am very excited to start the second of my four weeks here, hope to have a lot of good news and learnings to share on my next blog!
Cheers, Andreia.
