On April 20th, 2021, the second Nyenrode Breakfast Session of the academic year 2020-2021 took place online. The session was organized and run by Nyenrode students on behalf of the JCV student association. Keynote speaker Marieke Vrins introduced the participants to her work for several NGO’s on the Greek Island Lesvos, where many refugees reside in search of safety and a better future. Despite the complicated environment, Vrins aimed and succeeded to collect inspiration and advice by offering the participants a business case on enhancing the cooperation between the many NGO’s to improve efficiency.
Carlijn Wentzel, director of Nyenrode Amsterdam, kicked off the session by introducing Vrins as an example in Social Responsible and Personal Leadership, by showing how your actions as a leader can affect the world around you. Since 2017, Vrins has worked for different NGO’s on Lesvos, like Starfish Foundation and Movement on the ground. She is now focusing on implementing and teaching ESD – which stands for Empowerment Self-Defense – on behalf of ESD Global. This way, she is helping the girls and women in the camps, by increasing awareness about violence and training them in verbal and physical self-defense to prevent violence.“The complex environment leads to difficulties in working together efficiently.”2020 has been an eventful year, with a large strike from the local community due to the lack of (sufficient) help from the EU and the Greek government. There was also protest from the refugees due to inhumane conditions, with 23.000 people living in a camp that was made for a few thousand residents. The well-known fire in camp Moria and of course COVID-19 made things even worse. All this, combined with differing local, national and European political policies and many volunteers and refugees coming and going, makes for a complex and ever-changing environment. Which in turn leads to difficulties in working together efficiently, to be able to keep providing the necessary help.
“Involving independent actors is crucial to overcome competitiveness.”Another solution brought forward by the groups is to appoint Project Managers who will assess new projects and look for the best fit within the existing NGO’s. Ideas for new projects will be fed bottom-up by engaging representatives from the various refugee communities and distributed to the NGO’s from a central perspective. Vrins responded positively by adding that this will also tackle a portion of the competitiveness. The participants added that by using a central software system for projectmanagement, it will be possible to work more efficiently and get a grip on the knowledge that is already available.
Header photo credit: AFP
Online Breakfast Sessions
Four times per academic year Nyenrode Amsterdam organizes inspiring Breakfast Sessions together with student association JCV. For participating companies, these sessions provide an open platform for them to share their personal story and experience. Furthermore, it offers a unique opportunity for companies to present their business challenge to our (inter)national top students and get advice and ideas in a short time. The feedback received on these recommendations show that the companies who participated are always positively surprised about the outcomes of these short but powerful morning sessions. For more information please send an email to afterwork@nyenrode.nl.
About the JCV
The Jongste Compagnie van Verre (JCV) was founded in 2011. Back then it was led by Bachelor students of the Nyenrode New Business School. In 2019 this changed because Nyenrode Business University started with a Master of Science in Management and a Full-time MBA program in Amsterdam. Ever since the association is led by a combination of Bachelor, Master and MBA students. The JCV offers a platform for students of different social and educational backgrounds to connect and built relationship that will last a lifetime. For more information about the JCV visit: https://jcvamsterdam.nl
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