CEE-WENA ER meeting - 23-26 November 2006

In this week an External Relations meeting was held for the European ER responsibles on national level.
I also ran a session, it was about a non-corporate update from the AI non-corporate corner and about sharing news, opportunities for countries and the best case practices that we can learn from each other.
It went very well, although it was an after-lunch session (when people usually sleep and digest), people were very interested and they asked very cool questions and there was a great discussion going on at the end.
Amit and me were hosting six people altogether in our house, the entire Polish delegation (four people) and the Portuguese and Hungarian delegates.
Many ER people asked me about my future plans. It was very strange because I remember two people arguing some months ago from the AI team whether an AI member should already know what he/she wants to do in the coming term or if it shouldn’t be a requirement, it’s simply good if the person actually knows that clearly. But now I really feel that AI has become a role model in this sense as well, people want to learn from us, they want to know how we plan our long and short term future, and if we just say: ‘I want to become an AIESEC alumni and I want to get a job’, it sounds pretty disappointing.
But luckily I do have concrete plans about my short term future :) and I was happy to share them with the ER people.
I shared with many of them that I have realized that it is really possible to make a positive impact in the society and I want to continue to work in a company/organization where I can see this impact every day. Having a global reach is also very important for me for the long term future as I love living in a multicultural environment, I love communicating with countries all over the world and I also feel myself capable to sense and understand the different realities of the different regions of the world and support their development – yet respecting their uniqueness.
Thirdly, I would like a democratic working environment that is similar to AIESEC, in a sense that I would like to be able to innovate, to bring my unique perspective and leadership skills, to be challenged as well as recognized when I achieve the goals set.
And finally, I would like to combine all the above with my financial background because this is the functional area I am passionate about and that I will graduate in.
So, as a concrete idea, I came up with the World Bank – which is a bank yet a global organization, supporting all countries of the world and taking an active role in many developmental issues, such as HIV/AIDS or children’s education.

But going back to the ER meeting, we were partying every night but the last party was far the best of all!!!
We started in Café de Beurs at 11 p.m. and after a couple of drinks we decided to dance.
And as a real Hungarian, when the dance floor became too boring, I went up on the table!!!! :) And Maria and Petroula followed me, and so did Agata and Melissa after a while. Amit and Abhishek were sooo proud of me. :)
I must say, I haven’t had such a great party for a long time! All my favourite songs were played and we arrived home at 3 a.m., after 3 hours of non-stop dancing.

I was only missing one special person… but hopefully the next time when I come back to this place, he will be with me as well. There’s only one month to go….
Ah, and Amit made a picture of me, dancing on the table, and wanted to send it to this special person to ensure that he’s also proud of me…. :)


Stay tuned until the next posting! Next week I’m going to Paris and Brussels for sales trips and for an EU conference and I’ll have a lot of stories to tell for sure.

Hungarian friends visiting in Brussels - 18-19 November 2006

Kati and Adri, my Hungarian friends decided to visit our common friend, Bogi in Brussels and I also decided to go through so that we all see each other and my best friend, Tybchee (my former MC team mate) who is an InBev trainee in Leuwen also decided to join us for the week-end.
We had a lot of fun: we talked about very interesting topics of life, I admit, we were a bit gossiping as well :) and we visited the ‘Atomium’ together.
This is an immense building with the shape of an atom, built for Expo ’58 (International Exhibition of 1958). Although it was supposed to get destroyed, it became so popular that it has been renovated and since 2006 it’s been giving a brand new aesthetic experience to the visitors by taking them on a very special journey through its spheres.

After visiting the Atomium we went to the main square of Brussels and visited the classic touristic places: Manneken Pis and the magic statue that you have to touch, and then it will make you come back to Brussels again.
At the main square I saw Abhi and we decided to go back to Rotterdam together. We had a terrible journey because we had to change trains so many times due to reconstructions on the railway lines but at the end we arrived home safe.

I love my job!!!!

Let me share with you one of the highlights of my job - the World Bank grant project.
We have a great contact person in the Paris office of the World Bank and he gave me the tip to apply for their Development Marketplace Program with the AIESEC global HIV/AIDS Learning Network.
After some preparation about the different country level initiatives I realized that almost all countries are using the same framework in the their HIV/AIDS initiatives: the Ask Program (Answers, Solutions and Knowledge around HIV/AIDS issues) which was originally designed for African countries with the methodology of peer education and even if some of the non-African countries have other brand names for their projects, basically they do the same: peer education for poor young people, one of the most vulnerable groups of the society.

So, I decided to design the project according to the description of the Ask program and to collect the measurables from different countries accordingly. I also wanted to involve the Growth Network Boards so that they help me communicate with the countries and they get the expertise on grant applications.
Besides that I still had to call up almost all the countries because they still needed some clarifications that only I could provide and the deadline was quite tight for e-mail conversations.
So, I ended up speaking with 17 countries over the course of 2 weeks: Cameroon, Costa Rica (Central America South), Mainland of China, Colombia, Ghana, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Morocco, Senegal, South Africa, Tanzania, Thailand, Togo, Turkey, Uganda, US, Venezuela.

It’s been amazing! And all of them got completely excited! And after clarifying the goals of the projects and the information I needed from them for submitting the grant, almost all of them replied to me within 1 to 2 days. What a speed, what a speed!
And after the compilation of the deliverables we’ve realized that the global AIESEC network is planning to realize over 200 exchanges, around 400 learning events, and almost 50.000 young people will be reached by the project over the course of one year.
And I’ve even received feedback from our contact person from the World Bank and he said the application was brilliant and that we had a huge potential to win the grant award – 200.000 Euros for a period of two years!!!!
And do you know what is the best thing in connection with this grant? The fact that I could personally contact all the HIV/AIDS responsibles in the abovementioned countries and we‘ve built personal connections which is a key to the success of our global HIV/AIDS Learning Network that I am managing this year.
Besides that I love the World Bank and I seriously consider working for them from next year on, after my AIESEC career ends.

Life is simply beautiful!

Michelle from Hong Kong visiting the Netherlands - 4-6 November 2006

At the beginning of November I received an e-mail from Christal, my friend from Hong Kong (former Vice President Finance of Hong Kong, currently PWC coordinator) and she asked me if I could host her friend from Hong Kong, her predecessor who completed her traineeship in Romania and was traveling around Europe. I said yes, sure.
After some e-mail conversations with Michelle about arranging the meeting time and the program of the week-end, we realized that we actually knew each other from IC (the AIESEC International Congress) in Germany, 2004. Both of us attended and since we both held the position of Vice President Finance, we had a lot of functional meetings throughout the whole conference.

So, we became very good friends and we visited Amsterdam together. We went to the Anna Franck museum that was a very inspiring experience for both of us. The museum was situated at the former house of Anna Franck who wrote the famous diary about her life as a jew in the era of holocaust.
What impressed me the most is that nowadays museums – or at least the ones of Amsterdam - provide you with an entire experience, not just some paintings on the wall. For example at the Anna Frank Museum I had the chance to watch short sketches about her life, go through her house with a virtual multimedia tool, send a video message to Ryan from the museum and even to buy the book on site, in their special book shop.

During our common visit to Amsterdam, we had very nice chats about many things: Michelle told me that she had bought a railway pass and she had a travel plan to visit every important touristic place, she told me about her trainee experience in Buckarest, about what she was planning to do after the European trip and she even cooked Chinese for me and made me realize what are the special characteristics of the CEE food and cooking methods that are very far from her taste: frying, using a lot of oil, paprika as a type of spice, sour cucumbers (savanyu uborka) amongst many others…
It’s been a great week-end!

Our 8th Monthly Anniversary - 2nd November 2006

The present of my darling from Singapore:

Halloween party - Amsterdam, 28th October 2006

The AI team got an invitation to the Halloween Party of the trainees in Amsterdam.
Here it is:

“5 days to go...
ONLY 5...

HALLOWEEN 2006!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Is your costume ready?
Is your costume scary?
(Believe me, the punishment for daring to show up without costume is ten times scariest than the worst of your nightmares- costumes will be checked at the entrance)

Jack-o's are being carved, spiderwebs and ivy are covering the walls of Mezquitalaan 49, Slotervaart (in the west).

Starting time 20:30BYO and enough to share too!!

cheerios!

Mazz, Mash, Vi, Gin and Sarika

*****

At the end only Laura and myself went there from the AI team and Ieva, our CEEDer from Latvia.
The most difficult part was to dress up properly because we were all scared about the punishment. I met up with Abhi at the market and he helped me find something but he still refused to go to the party.
So, at the end I bought a skeleton pyjama and I was ready to go. :)

For further scary photos, feel free to visit my