Stephanie Haase
Global Program Manager, Amani Institute
As we at Amani Institute started to come to terms with the world drastically changing overnight due to the pandemic, we had to make tough decisions affecting our programs. We wanted to ensure that we could continue our work of supporting changemakers safely, without losing quality and the potential for impact. We were able to do this, also thanks to the support from organisations like Earth Company, who were immediately willing to test and innovate with us.
As we embarked on the journey of this remote apprenticeship/consultancy, I was continuously impressed by the ease of communication with the team from Earth Company. It was clear that the team truly cared about giving our Fellows a relevant and interesting challenge to get an introduction to what work can look like in the impact sector. Challenges, like working across time zones ranging from Japan to Peru and the US, were managed and any concerns were proactively approached. Our hope is always that the apprenticeships are useful for both the apprentices as well as the hosts, and it seems this goal was met! It was such a pleasure working with such a dedicated team of people, and I hope we will have the opportunity to continue working together in the future!
Aroun Dupuis
Amani Fellow
I am Aroun from Switzerland. I worked for 10 years in the private banking industry before joining the Amani Social Innovation Program. Amani Institute creates new ways of educating professionals interested in building careers of meaning and impact, with the right blend of knowledge, skills, experience, and networks needed to be successful in their careers.
As a part of our Social Innovation Program, I joined the Earth Company Team to learn how the social sector works, what it truly takes to create change and to put into practice all the skills that I learned during the 5 months program.
During the apprenticeship, and with the help of my 3 other Amani fellows, we developed and implemented an “intrapreneurship challenge” around developing a marketing and business strategy for Mana Earthly Paradise, an eco-hotel affected during the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic like most of the tourism industry. The impact we had was to create a potential alternative strategy for an industry facing unprecedented challenges using social media.
I am very grateful to the Earth Company Team, who welcomed us in their community and shared with us their knowledge in sustainable tourism. I gained an insight into how it can be difficult to run a sustainable business during a global health crisis and how to create innovative solutions to overcome these challenges.
Andrea Tan
Amani Fellow
I am Andrea Tan from California, but have spent the last 8 years working abroad in China in various Advertising Agencies for brands from Auto to Consumer Goods. One year I took some surf lessons in Bali, which led me to swim in an ocean of plastic. This moment triggered in me the desire to find meaning in my career and look for companies that prioritized social and environment impact before profit. When I joined Amani Institute, one of the enticing parts of the program is the emphasis on hands on experience. So when Earth Company was offered as one of the partners, I saw it as the perfect opportunity to learn about how to run a business venture while prioritizing social impact and keeping true to a company’s value.
Due to Covid-19, the travel industry was heavily impacted and we were tasked with how to market Mana, a next generation eco-resort, to an audience that didn’t have a strong affinity to sustainability. Ideas were generated to create experiences that target the eco-conscious, but also tempted other types of travelers including those who wanted to travel, but couldn’t – all while ensuring that Mana aligned to its core values.
Working in Earth Company, I learned that this model should serve not only as inspiration for those in the social entrepreneurship space, but should be a standard across all sectors – private and public. A business model where sustainable growth is important, but only when it coincides with the core values of People and Planet. Navigating this experience with the whole team working remotely from seven different countries made scheduling challenging, but it allowed for a multitude of different ideas and perspectives, which was a great learning opportunity and an invaluable experience with learnings I will take into my next opportunity.
Mafe Zamora
Amani Fellow
My name is Mafe Zamora, and I am a Peruvian social-driven woman that has been working for gender equality and Latin American workforce inclusion for a few years now. I decided to strengthen and enhance my innovation and change-making skills while learning from experience; that is why I decided to do the Social Innovation Management program online with the Amani Institute. The opportunity to do an apprenticeship presented, and I wanted to orient it towards sustainability and development.
I decided to choose Earth Company because of their mission, their lines of action and their purpose, which I deeply share. Collaborating with the Mana team first and then with Operation Green was a fantastic opportunity for me to learn while doing and meet amazing people doing excellent work on the other side of the world. The challenge was inspiring. We learned a lot about responsible tourism while doing an intense research process and then ideating what we learned and the opportunities we envisioned for the future. The feedback given was always precious, and we got to have powerful conversations and connect as a team.
I am very grateful for the opportunity to work with two real projects and problems that the organization was facing. I am sure great things are yet to come for Earth Company, and I am very excited to watch it happen.