FROM THE FROZEN COLD TO THE FRIENDLY WARM

Hi from Haarlem,

More than a week has passed since I arrived to the Netherlands, and no one has had any news about my experience here! Logically, it’s because I have been working hard, and because Snatu has done a lot of noise in the last weeks. Madream, Berdeago, Zuk Hobetu… There are three projects, like other ones in Snatu that are having an enormous development while I am here. It’s a pity not being there to feel the power of the team…

But come on, things are going fine here as well ; we are also having a great development! I am going to use a real metaphor that shows perfectly our situation.

When we arrived it was cold; everything was white and the lakes, rivers or channels were frozen. For the first days the situation didn’t change at all, we were not used to this climate, and it was difficult to adapt. But it has also good things, it was the first time in my live I ice-skated in the river! Now the temperature is becoming warmer day by day, and the snow and the ice are melting.

Well, I say that because our experience is being the same. At first the relationship between us was cold; it was the first time that we went to a different country with people from different team-companies to do a project. Laura Estankona from Smash, Amaia Giralt from Steps, Aritz Pagola from Ego, and I are the protagonist of this great adventure that we are living. Now our co-existence is great, we share all kind of things and I am learning a lot from them and their companies. We also had a little party with TAN (Team Academie Netherlands) people, and now we are able to work like a great team. The ice (the barriers that were among us, probably due to shyness or cultural differences) is melting, and the sun is shining although it’s winter!

So as you can see, we are totally adapted, and working very hard and always trying to have fun! But what do we have exactly to do? Well, our work is divided in three lines, but as it is usual in LEINN we have added more missions. The first three are essential if we want to get money and go on in the project, and the fourth one is complementary to empower our international community.

As you know, they want to implant LEINN in their building like a formal degree the next course, so our experience can be very helpful. Taking into account that here there are only 4, 5, 6 teampreneurs in their yearly teams, and there are only 2 girls in all TAN, it is evident what our task here is. We have the chance to get more students here, and what can be better than holding an event like Ametsen Ekaitza (Dream Storm for them) with us? We are building their ideas, but it’s their work to organize the event. We must help them with the workshops; we are co-designing the planning of those, and of course, we must do it with them. According to their learning programme, they have to spend 3 months in a different country each year; some of them will go to the Basque Country, where they will stay 2-3 months doing basic subjects. We have thought that would be a good idea presenting the workshops in English an by us, the LEINN people, to show this issue visually.

We also have to do marketing via Facebook using the competition that had stopped until we came. It consist on making a catchy phrase for TAN T-shirts, you have to take a photo with the phrase, upload to Facebook, tag TAN in the photo, and say “I like it” to the TAN page. The prize for the winner will be a Mac Book Air, to see who the winner is, you have to visit the official webpage of TAN, getting more information of LEINN. We are promoting this championship in the schools and the results look fantastic! And finally we have to do a video to put in the official webpage of TAN, explaining what LEINN is, it’s learning methodology and the essence or value with real feedbacks. More or less, we have clear ideas, so I think that we are in the good way.

But we are not here only for working, we are making our own learning revolution. We want to have a bigger community, and for that people must be able to work with all kind of people. Here in TAN, they have two kinds of programs, one for vocational students, and other one for Bachelor Students. They have different programs and different studies, and they also have a big and wide wall between them. They don’t mix at all, but they have the same dream. So we want to break this way of thinking and we have proposed a day like “Huston calls”, but with mixing exercises. We are going to bring real problems and we are going to solve them in teams where there will be members of the 3 fields (Vocational, Bachelor and us).

As you see, I am quite busy working here, as Snatu is in the Basque country!
I am also using and improving my English to go to San Francisco with top of power. You will have more information about the workshops, the day we will do to empower the community or only about my experience in the blog.

I leave here a video that my friend and current teammate in Hollandream! has done, good job Amaia.

@jontxu_arana