Publication: Future Leaders Support Powakka/Surinam
Friday 23 January 2009 - In the Ballroom of the Torarica Royal Hotel in Paramaribo 4 mixed teams of `Future Leaders` (the future Mandelas and Obamas ?) presented their vision, ideas and more detailed plans for the benefit of Powakka Village in Surinam.
Each team was a balanced mixture of both Dutch and Surinam students who had worked closely together these last two weeks in Surinam.
Better Future
The total programme -with a strong focus on `social entrepreneurship`- has been developed by Better Future in Culemborg in The Netherlands on behalf of one of their major clients: Fortis.
Some quotes of Better Future:
"Our Goal is Our Name
Allow us to share our passion: we coach and connect leaders in business and society. Sustainable leadership is the speciality on our menu. Being an engaged leader,
you not only contribute substantially to your own development, but you
also improve the well-being of your organisation, and you augment the
life of others, the world we live in. In short, a contribution to a
better future. Business aspects are a leading motive, for sure,
but real inspiration goes much deeper. To live a meaningful life, and
to direct your strengths and qualities to issues that really make a
difference, that`s what it’s all about.
Social Entrepreneurship
The appeal of a better world is universal. A balanced global
community, equal opportunity for everyone, respect for life, clean
environment, poverty and diseases eradicated: the hopes and wishes of
people worldwide. However, a better society does not come about by
itself. Industry, business, and commerce can make a difference. Or
rather should make
a difference. We coach and connect leaders in both business and
society. Better Future helps companies translate their corporate social
responsibility into practical terms. We make social entrepreneurship
your business, connecting company results with social initiative. There
are countless opportunities to find inspiration and to develop new
competencies within your organisation. A better world as a direct
result of social entrepreneurship."
Pictures
On Friday, 23 january 2009 pictures were made by the Better Future team.
With thanks to Linn Zebeda and Marieke of the Better Future Team, in Surinam directed by Managing Partners Marije Adriaansens and Michel Barth, I would like to present a selection of pictures.
Dutch Business Leaders
Untill their ultimate presentation these groups have been supported and coached by Dutch `Business Leaders`. This group visited our `Landgoed Groot Mariënbosch` last sunny Sunday, 18 January 2009. If interested, please sail to "Publications" and the concerning pictures in "Photography". On that same eventful sunday we had also dinner with this group in `Cosa Nostra`. If you are still interested, please read my epigram (in Dutch) about that same special night in `Cosa Nostra`...
Focus in the interest of Powakka Village
The main subjects covered in the Ballroom of the Torarica Royal Hotel were:
- sports
- tourism (in Powakka; TOPO)
- women & culture
However, as everyone was talking about the Powakka people without involving them directly (being present in the audience !) in their individual presentations, my associate and Managing Partner of `Landgoed Groot Mariënbosch`, Marije van Zomeren asked the following question: "How do the Powakka people in this audience feel themselves about these new plans, made by the `Future Leaders`?". Fortunately the answers, given by several inhabitants of the Powakka Village, seated on the floor (!), were very encouraging.
Think Tank session about TOPO on `Landgoed Groot Mariënbosch`
After the presentation of the topic `tourism` I had a special offer in mind for the `Future Leaders`team. After visiting the Powakka Village myself, the whole team of `Future Leaders` will be invited to stay one day on our `Landgoed Groot Mariënbosch` to discuss with Marije van Zoomeren and me - in a special workshop or Thinkg Tank session- further details on the proposed step-by-step business plan to increase and realise sustainable tourism opportunties in the interest of the Powakka people.
Moreover, for me there will be an other reason to visit Powakka :
Shamanism in Powakka... and in Kwamalasamutu a couple of months ago
Between the presentations in the Ballroom, Marije van Zomeren and I had the opportunity to have a short chat with the female `Sjamaan` of Powakka. In short, there were mutual indigenous feeilings and the three of us felt a growing strong positive energy flow. Moreover, she invited me personally to visit her in her home outside the Powakka Village in the forest.
At the end of all presentations the `Sjamaan` really surprised me: she stand up in the audience and she gave me as a personal gift a special cashew fruit. She told me later that she had received a message from `above` early this morning to bring that cashew fruit from Powakka to Paramaribo to give it to some -untill that moment- unknown person. She had some kind of recognition. And so had I. A life time experience... again, because:
I had the same kind of emotions (and feelings of reincarnation) a couple of months ago in Kwamalasamutu near the Brazilian border in the Amazones. On that special moment the Granman of several Trio Tribes, 3.000 people in all, shared the same kind of feelings with me and gave my Surinam Awarak-friend Sirano Toscanni Zalman and me special amulets. Spontaneously I gave the Granman in return my amulet with one of my personal totems: the eagle, in gold, originally made by the Chorotega Tribe, who lived in the past on Hacienda la Esperanza in Costa Rica .(if interested go to my personal `eagle view` pictures, made from a hangglider, called... Eagle).
The Chorotega`s were former Maya descendants . For me that was a life time experience as well, deep in the virgin rainforests of Kwamalasamutu...
A couple of days before I wrote about that special and surprising ceremony. If you want te know more about this spiritual subject, sail to "Tribute to Sirano... and the concerning "Photography" item