Gramado and surroundings

Hi there!

Just a short update of the last days we've spent in Gramado. We arrived here at wednesday and had a relaxing afternoon. Just walking around, eating and having fun. Gramado is a small village that looks like the villages in Austria and Switserland, only then in a warmer climate. We ended that day with a cheese fondue, meat fondue and for dessert a chocolate fondue. Eating is a big part of our schedule of the day.

Gramado

Thursday we went to Taquara and Parobe and visited a university, shoe factory Bibi and a factory where they metalize plastic items for shoes, bags, etc. That evening we presented ourselves and the Netherlands at a joint meeting of the two Rotary Clubs.

At friday we met Irina. She is the coordinator of our exchange in Brazil and she took us to a wonderful waterfall in Canela! In the afternoon we visited organizations connected to our professions, such as a school, a sports club, communication agency and the local government. At the school in Canela there were at that moment no classes Geography unfortunately, but I met two teachers and we had a discussion about the school system in Brazil. We agreed that there is a need for improving the quality of the teachers and students. Especially in the public schools. Furthermore, they wanted to know a lot about The Netherlands and Europe. As a present I received a school book from one of the teachers. I had a good time, so thank you!

Waterfall Caracol

After the vocational part we visited a social project where they give poor children in Canela the opportunity to play music, play football and have extra reading lessons. The project is sponsored by Rotary Club Canela.

Today was a relaxing day. We stayed in Gramado and we visited the local fire department. Wouter climbed up the pole in stead of going down... After that, we went to the Zoo, a beautiful place with animals from all over Brazil. In the afternoon we went to the house of Santa Claus. In summer time, when he doesn't have to work, he lives here. It was really strange to learn that Santa lives in the south of Brazil and not on the North pole!

Tomorrow we will go to Novo Hamburgo. Tonight we will have a goodbye party with our host families with a BBQ.

I hope I can upload some pictures soon.

Greetz, Jo-Anne

Leaving Canoas and exploring the countryside

Hello everyone, sorry you had to wait a bit longer for an update. We have been sooooo busy and an extensive internet session wasn´t always part of the programme. But I´ll update you up untill this moment.

The last few days with our families in Canoas have been pretty relaxing and fun. Last Friday, we had a free day after an intensive first week and most of us went to the beach in Tramandai with our families. As soon as we got there, we had to go swim in the Atlantic Ocean to sober up. We had been to one of the most exclusive clubs in Porto Alegre called Café Segredo the night before and slept even less that the nights before ;p
After completely burning up in the sunshine that day, we happily returned home for a good night sleep so we would be prepared for an original Gaucho BBQ at an original Fazenda at the lake. We were under the inpression that we had been having BBQ´s all week, but this hadn´t yet been the real thing.......but at least now we know what to expect when the local people are talking about ´a BBQ´ ;)

Following a fantastic first week with our host families came a somewhat emotional goodbye. We didn´t really want to leave, and they didn´t really want us to leave. But even good things seem to come to an end, so with a tear in our eye and all the love in our hearts, we left for the country side for the city of Bom Principio.

Before I continue our story, I would like to thank all the wonderful people we met in Canoas on behalf of the entire team.....so here goes: THANK YOU PEOPLE OF CANOAS FOR ALL THE GREAT MOMENTS, WE MISS YOU!!!!!!!!

Our journey continues towards the country side. Bom Principio is a small town that originally was founded by German immigrants around 1826. All the people have German surnames, but not everybody can speak German anymore. The people from the local Rotary club are very friendly, kind and helpful to us. After a very nice lunch and a rest in the afternoon we discovered what the local youth call partying. For all the Dutch people reading; there are ´Tukkers´ in Brazil that go ´Brommers Kiek´n´ and party at ´Schuurfeesten´ :D

The following days were extremely interesting, we were able to visit many places that had quite some historical value for the area we were in. We even visited an isolated settlement of German Brazilians that had supported themselves from the moment they arrived almost 200 years ago. After a wonderful traditional lunch, we went for a small hike in the Brazilian ´jungle´. We ate some of the fruits, Jo-Anne was attacked by an unidentified insect (she´s ok and stopped scratching after 2 days ;p) and we fought of some crocodiles and snakes ;)

The second day we were guided by two Rotary clubs, Ivoti in the morning and Estância Velha in the afternoon, and they must have studied our wish list very well because the programme had the most educational visits. A schnaps brewery and a technical high school for the art of leather treatment. As a result, we now know how to make our own favourite alcoholic drink and leather shoes, purses and jackets......what else do we need?!! It was a big and pleasant surprise to meet a Brazilian that spoke Dutch, he had lived in The Netherlands for 10 years but decided to go back a couple of years ago to set up his own company, I think he must have got tired of the rain all the time :)

To finish this part of our story, we would like to thank the people of Bom Principio for their hospitality and kindness, we can´t wait to see you all at the conference in Tramandai!!

At this moment we have spent some days in the next little town called Gramado, even higher up in the mountains. This small town is a very touristic place that is an exact copy of an Southern Tiroler village (only warmer) and is the hometown of Santa Claus whenever it isn´t Christmas time. In our next update we will tell you all about it.

See you in a couple of days, byebye,

Michael

Photo: Our host families and us together before our responsible clubbing night in Porto Alegre

Photo: Wouter together with the funniest man of Porto Alegre, Jairo

Impressions of the first week

Our first week in Brazil was great; a good mix of visits to interesting companies, social projects sponsored by Rotary and a lot of fun with our host families. Every evening we met up at one of the host families, where they prepared a great meal, typically from this region. The nights usually ended with us dancing and singing all together. Photo: our team leader enjoying the bbq with Jairo and his girl friend.

The program of this week was taken care of by Rotary clubs in the cities Cachoerinha, Canoas and Gravatai. Three quite large cities surrounding Porto Alegre. In Cachoerinha (which means little waterfall) we visited an agricultural school on land the size of 42 ha. The director of the school told as a lot about there way of teaching, translated by a member of the Rotaract club. The children learn how to conserve nature while working on agricultural projects. The tour on their school property showed us how they cultivate rice . We visited IRGA a research institute on rice production. 60 % of the rice production in Brazil takes place in this state, Rio Grande do Sul.

In the center of Cachoerinha we visted the local chamber of commerce, 400 commercial organizations are listed. The chamber assists them on marketing and sales. At the Rotary club we presented ourselves briefly, after a really nice lunch. The next activity on the program was bringing a visit to the enterprise Renova, a large cleaning company for industrial towels, covers for airplane chairs, etc. The chief commercial officer guided us and answered our questions about the production proces, clients and how they handle chemical waste. Their sustainable production proces takes care of dealing with waste to minimize harming the environment. Our day ended by visiting a private university, build up from a small kindergarten. A few teachers guided us through their new building. In Brazil it is common to work during the day and study in the evening, this told us a lot about how ambitious young Brazilians are!

The next day our host club Canoas Industrial took care of our program. In the morning we visited three social projects of Rotary. A shelter for teenage mothers, a project that provides the basics needs for poor people in one of the poor neighboorhoods and the local hospital. The ambulance is sponsored by this Rotary club. At lunch time we were received at the Rotary meeting, where we told the members about the Netherlands. To our surprise they even arranged to play our national anthem. After lunch we visited the huge refinary of PetroBras, the largest oil company of Brazil. The completely automated system to control the gas production proces was really impressive.

The local news paper of Canoas was our next stop. Together with the president of the Rotary club they interviewed us about our impressions of Rio Grande do Sul and the GSE goals. The next we were famous in Canoas :-)

To be continued...

Emma

Kathleen @ DLL in Porto Alegre

Five days after we arrived in this beautiful country, I would like to share some of my impressions. The travelscedule the friendly people of Rotary Canoas Industrial prepared for us untill now is full of interesting meetings at governmental departments, presentations at commercial enterprices and research institutions, local development projects and ofcourse there is time to experience the cuisine of Rio Grand do Sul. Untill now, in one word tri legal!
As a human resource advisor @ Rabobank I was invited to visit the HR department of De Lage Landen in Porto Alegre. A great opportunity for me to meet HR professionals in Brazil and to interchange knowledge on different HR topics like the collective labour agreement, employee recruitment, trainig and development, compensation and benefit schemes. Many thanks to Francisca, Kátia, Daniela of HR and Maarten Viskaal, the president director of DLL for their time and answering all my questions during the whole day!
I included some pictures of today.

Day 1

After the relaxing first day, we all ended up with the message that the real programme was about to start on Monday. This day was organised by one of the Rotary clubs of Porto Alegre.

Our host families would bring us to Jairo´s place at 8:00. We were brought to one of the Rotarians of Porto Alegre. After the formalities and several pictures, we were on our way to the first meeting of our busy programme.
The Secretary of Policy Coordination and Local Governance of Porto Alegre, Clênia Maranhão invited us in the Town Hall. Together with an interpreter, she talked about the difficulties of governing a huge city such as Porto Alegre, with its 1.5 million inhabitants. The emphasis of her term was on decentralisation by opening local governmental offices to understand the local problems. More info on http://www2.portoalegre.rs.gov.br/cs/default.php?reg=105504&p_secao=3&di=2009-04-06

Secondly we took a stroll around the local market. The accompanying Rotarians showed us the several places. As Porto Alegre is located next to Brazil´s biggest lake, we naturally had to lunch at a tasty fish restaurant. The amount of caipirinhas consumed was quite alright, especially by one of hosts.
Happily after, we made a short visit of the new mall. Because of the nice weather, the indoor location of the shops seems quite strange. For safety reasons, the Brazilians prefer these over outdoor shops.

Next on the programme was the visit to SEDAI, the State Department of Development and International Affairs. The sympathic secretary explained the goals of the organisation and asked us about our background. He gave us a nice impression of the developments of the region to attract more investors.

Two more things were yet to come: the visit to the president of the assemblee and a meeting with the local press. We were kinldy received by the president. With the help of an interpreter he tried to address our vocational questions. The head of the newspaper Correio do Povo old us their story as an independent newspaper in a very political country and made some pictures from us for Tuesday´s news paper.

Thanks to the guidance of the Rotarians were were received with open arms every where. After saying goodbye to them, we went back to Canaos for our first BBQ at Jairo´s place, together with all our host families. After a long day of nice impressions, the daily greetings to our families was as the amount and size of BBQ meat: impressive and welcome.

Wouter

Some pictures

The Plane











At Schiphol .......



Jo-Anne had to repack !










At the barbecue lunch

First impressions

After weeks of preparation, yesterday it began! Early in the morning, we met at Schiphol Airport and left our country for the trip!
Almost 20 hours later we arrived at Porto Alegre. There was a big delegation of the Rotary Clubs and our guest families.

My first impressions:

- nice, friendly people
- lovely temperature, only bad weather (rain)
- a lot of meat at barbecue
- capairinha´s
- the Portuguese Brazilian language is difficult, but I´m trying

Tomorrow we have our first formel meeting, but what we are going to do is not clear to me. It will be a surprise.

Jo-Anne

Wouter van Diemen de Jel

My name is Wouter van Diemen de Jel, born twenty eight years ago in The Hague and now living in the lovely city of Utrecht. I have one brother, living in Utrecht as well.

After high school in The Hague, I decided to study one year at a US college in Maryland, for a broad study orientation and to experience the United States.

After this year I went to Enschede in the east of the Netherlands to study Public Policy, with a Master in European Studies. Besides my study, I became a member of the European Study Association and became a member of the board of the Public Policy Study Association. Together my internship at the Atlantic Council in Washington D.C. these activities really broadened my world.

In 2006 I moved to Utrecht where I have lived since. Since these two years I have been enjoying this city. In this city I became a member of Rotaract Utrecht.

Furthermore I play volleybal here with my friends, listen to different styles of music and enjoy city trips to other European cities. During the last three years I have been working for APG Group, the second biggest organization for pension funds of the world.

It administers the collective pension funds for the government, educational and construction industry and invests the 200 billion euro assets. As a project leader, it is my responsibility to implement new elements to the organization, running from a change in the organizational structure to a new way to communicate with the one million participants of the pension fund. My jobs, Rotaract and the various hobbies keep my very busy. But in April, I hope to combine all these in Brasil.

Michael Severs

Hello everyone, my name is Michael Philip Severs, I'm 26 years old and I spend most of my time in Nijmegen in the Eastern part of the Netherlands. Although I was born in Woerden, which is located in the centre of the Netherlands, I have lived in different places throughout my youth.

From birth until the age of eight, I have lived in a small village near Woerden called Linschoten. After that, I moved to Germany to live there for six years with my parents and my sister Wendy. Before moving back to The Netherlands, we lived in the Southern part of Belgium for four years. All this moving around was the result of my father being in the military.

In 2000 I started studying computer engineering at the Transnational University of Limburg in Diepenbeek, Belgium. But after two years, I found out that computers weren't my piece of the pie, so I moved back to the Netherlands to Nijmegen to study Business Communications at the Radboud University. In June of last year I graduated as a Master of Arts and since then I started my own company in trend marketing, coaching and guiding people to become successful entrepreneurs in the Wellness industry. Besides that, I have been an Office Manager for Duosport Courses since September of last year. This is a commercial sports organisation that provides high quality service for recreational athletes that specialises in speed skating activities of all kinds.

As one of my main responsibilities/activities in both jobs is the training and coaching of personnel/entrepreneurs, my main vocational interest is in this area. During my time in Rio Grande do Sul, I would like to find out in what way service organisations in Brazil educate, train and coach their people in order to provide customers with the highest service possible and distinguish themselves from other companies.

I am looking forward to meeting the local people in Brazil and I am eager to get familiar with the language and the local culture. The link will show you a short movie of me and some friends having a great time speed skating on the lakes, our greatest passion.

http://hugokruk.hyves.nl/fotos/523395044/0/E5xF/

Willem Barent Wijsmuller / Team Leader

Hello to everybody reading this weblog.

Since 57 years, my name is Willem Barent Wijsmuller, a name given by my parents based on the historical Dutch Explorer - Seafarer "Willem Barentszn", who spend a full Nordic Winter on the small Island of Nova Zembla in a cottage they constructed from the wooden remains of their crippled Schooner. Regretfully Willem Barentszn passed away on their return to The Netherlands after a real Nordic Winter of 5 months. I am one of the 4 childern, all boys, born in our family my brothers as well are named after wellknown Dutch Admirals and Sailors.

After spending my happy youth in Baarn, regretfully my father passed away when I was hardly 7 years old. I joined the Military Service, which at that time was still obligatory in The Netherlands. Afterwards I studied at the Poly Technical University, Mechanical Engineering with a finallisation on Business Administration.

In the meantime I got married with Inger, my Highschool Love, with whom I am still married happily. We have 3 childern in the range of 30 Y, 27 Y and 25 Y of age (B, G, G). During my study, Inger and myself, spent half a year working in the Dominican Republic, where we were infected with the enjoyment of living abroad, which we continued after graduation.
We spend about 8 years abroad in various countries:
- Dominican Republic
- Indonesia
- Dubai

After our time abroad we returned to The Netherlands in 1985 and are now living again in the little town where I spent all of my youth. Living next to the woods enabling us to walk our dogs, 3 English Setters, easilly.

My main activities were in the Shipping Industry, working for the Royal Nedlloyd Group. Abroad I always was second or first in command. After getting back to The Netherlands, Amsterdam, I left the Nedlloyd, as I was not used working in a company of 25.000 people, where I could not get things done within a reasonable stretch of time. In 1986 I stepped over to the IT industry where I had fun, it was good to see how a fast moving indusry was getting on. After a small Dutch firm (2 years) I joined Tandem Computers (presently owned/intergrated by HP) a real US Company with all the things Dutch people don't do. It was a great time !!

But as life goes, the Maritime Industry was still in my vanes. So after 6 years in the IT it was time for me to get back into the Maritime activities, started my own company with which I am still keeping myself busy. Nowadays with a Business Partner who is keeping controle of all Operational matters. He is allowing me to be in Brazil, with the GSE Team, for a month.

Hobby's:

First of all I like to enjoy life to the utmost, having fun is where life is all about. Whether it is fun in your freetime of fun in your Job. In my scarce free time I like, next to spending time with my wife, kids and friends (when they are around): doing Sports like:

- Sailing Flying Dutchman for the competition and Ocean Going Yachts for leisure. Caribbean !, Greece !

- Running, nowadays 10K, I however did the Half-Marathon of Anchorage

- Biking

- Pilates

- Golf

- Swimming

- Field Hockey

- Horse riding

- Etc.

Next to that I like Piloting, which I had to stop a few years back but planning to get it going again when I can find the time. I keep myself rather busy as you can see, but still enjoying everything I do!

So aswell being the team Leader of the Dutch GSE Team 1570 - 4670. The Team members are all very bright youngsters, with whom I will have a great time in the region of Rio Grande Do Sul.

Regards,
Willem Barent

View on the Netherlands

Travel To The Netherlands - The best video clips are right here

Jo-Anne Groefsema

I am Jo-Anne Groefsema and living in Utrecht since 2001. Before that, I have lived with my parents in the east of The Netherlands. I have a brother (Anton) and sister (Martine), who are also living on their own.

In 2001 I started studying International Development Studies at the University of Utrecht. It was a nice time and I enjoyed it to meet new people. The second half year of 2004 I went to Mali, Western-Africa to do a research on irrigation systems. With three Dutch friends I was living in the middle of the Malian society and that was an once in a lifetime experience. It is so special to meet people with different cultural backgrounds and believes.

In 2006 I finished my studies and started the Teacher Training College. I did different internships and in 2007 I started to work at a school in Breukelen, where I am still working.

Since my stay in Mali I have travelled in my holidays. Mali has become my second home country and I will always go back there, but I am also curious about other cultures. That’s why I did spend my last holidays in Indonesia and why I have applied for GSE 2009. As a Geography Teacher I think it is very important to know a lot about the world and experience everything from inside the society. Latin America is a part of the world I don’t know yet, so I really like to go to Brazil. During leisure I prefer to meet friends, to make and listen to music (piano, guitar), go dancing (salsa, African dance) and a lot of other things.

At this moment I am working as a teacher Geography at a school in Breukelen. I am teaching students from the age of 11 to 15 year. Apart from that I am also a mentor of a class. I help them if they have problems and teach them how to learn best. It is a very responsible job, but I like it. You bond with your students at another level than with normal students. I am also the coordinator of a project concerning education in development countries. One student of our school had visited Malawi in February to see how Stichting Edukans (an organization that is building and helping schools) works. The girl is coming back to The Netherlands with a lot of stories and tries to reach other students with her experience. After that we are going to raise money for Stichting Edukans.

In Brazil I really like to visit schools and see how they are teaching Geography in a country different than The Netherlands. If it is possible I would like to start a small-scale exchange between my students and some Brazilian students. For example a letter or e-mail project in which the students are exchanging contemporary problems which they are facing in their country or city. I also like to visit some schools (primary or secondary) in villages or slumps around Porto Allegre. With my Master International Development Studies in mind I also am curious about development projects in the region and specially development projects concerning education, culture (dance and music) and agriculture.

Kathleen Baecke

I am Kathleen Baecke, born 27 years ago in a southern part of the Netherlands called Zeeland Flanders, near Antwerp (Belgium). I have lived there for 18 years with my parents and older brother, who will be the third generation of family successors on the agricultural farm. Since the year 2007 I live in Utrecht with my boyfriend Fabian. During leisure I prefer to meet friends, do jogging or skating, go on holidays or help my parents during the harvest season.

I started studying Management and Economics at Wageningen University in the year 2000. After finishing my Bachelor degree I continued my Masters in the field of Human Resource Management. During my study I have actively participated in the international student association AIESEC, which aims at exchanging people globally, the exchange of cultures and (work) experiences. Since the year 2007 I work at the headquarters of the Rabobank in the Human Resources department. The Rabobank Group is a full-range international financial services provider founded on cooperative principles. It employs over 60,000 staff and is represented in 43 countries. The total number of employees in the Netherlands is about 42,000 people.

I am looking forward to experience the knowledge and cultural exchange with all of you; to discover Brazil and to learn from and interchange professional and inter-relational knowledge. Therefore I am interested in the answers to questions like: How do enterprises deal with HR issues like an ageing employee population or extensive increase of youngsters within their company? How do they attract, keep and develop employees to meet the business objectives now and in the future? Is there a transparent compensation and benefit policy within companies and (how) does this differ between profit and non-profit organisations?

Group photo after the salsa workshop & having dinner at Kathleen's place

Meet the GSE team members!

My name is Emma Meurs, 27 years old and I live in Utrecht, a small city located in the centre of Holland since I started studying Communication Management. During my studies I became an active member of the Rotaract club, the Rotary youth organization in Utrecht. I have two younger sisters Annabel and Renee. My youngest sister lives with my father in Hong Kong and I try to visit them every year. In my free time I spend a lot of time playing sports. My favourite is Capoeira because its roots are in Brazil. Playing Capoeira is a great opportunity to learn more about and experience a part of the Brazilian culture. I work for a Dutch foundation which is called New Venture. New Venture stimulates and invigorates innovative entrepreneurs within the Netherlands. One of the ways is by organizing a prestigious business plan competition in which participants write their business plan in three straight forward phases. As a project manager communications, my job contains informing participants about important events throughout the competition. Also, I deliver up-to-date information to the New Venture network.

Introduction

Only one month to go and we will be on our way to Porto Alegre, the capital of the southern state Rio Grande do Sul. The Rotary district 1570 in the Netherlands organizes this exchange program to visit district 4670 in Brazil. The program means to give young professionals a chance to meet their 'colleagues' from another culture. For example, what challenges do HR professionals face in a financial environment in Brazil? Besides vocational days during which we will visit companies individually, we also have time to explore the region. Our host families will take us to various interesting and for sure beautiful places! Before we will tell you all about our adventures, first learn more about us!