After returning once more from maternity leave in January of 2018 I was welcomed by the euforia team who came together at my home for our Quarterly Meeting, ensuring that I did not have to compromise on being present for our important strategy meeting and my kids. This is just one of the many times our euforia family has given me and my children my priceless of commodity of time. Needless to mention all their daily love and empathy.
Both of my children have been present at many of our meetings and workshops, especially when they were babies and I vividly recall one time whereby my son Emil was teething at the time and having a difficult day ; I continuously apologized until everyone made it truly clear that it was really okay. That same day, one of my colleagues then sent me the excerpt from Laloux’s Reinventing Organisations about “Inviting our Humanity to work”, where he emphasizes the positive aspect of dogs and children being present in the office, since it strengthens the human factor.
Being a mother in our world is not easy. Mothers are judged by society while they simultaneously judge themselves. Hence, the radical collaborative atmosphere at euforia, where we give everyone the opportunity to reach their full potential within a context of inclusion, competence and openness has just been so incredibly supportive in my new role as a mother of two, but also in my personal development.
This goes hand in hand with our underlying teal principle of showing up “whole”, as we are as human beings. Wholeness has always been intrinsic to euforia. But, it goes further than that and is actually the essence of our wholebeing mixes, which fosters a stronger, holistic understanding of “what creates value for us at work”.
euforia has developed an excellent prototype for a gender equal workplace with our flexible system to ensure that everyone’s personal and professional needs are met. Thanks to our wholebeing mix I for example have never had a bad conscious neither towards my children nor towards my work. Due to my general flexibility, part-time engagement (80%) and home office I am able to live up to my own expectations on both sides.
There is never a one-size-fits-all and euforia understands that. This is in general the underlying philosophy of the wholebeing mix - everyone can define their individual personal wholebeing plan. I truly believe that the culture we have fostered at euforia is something so beautiful and I am forever grateful to be a part of it. I cannot imagine any better place for me to strive, where only heaven is the limit and I can bring my whole self, and all my visions for projects, collaborations, new programs and co-creations into, but also my fears, struggles and worries.
So here now finally the magic parameters for our wholebeing mixes, that we can modify according to our professional-personal-family life balance and wellbeing:
We use the wholebeing mix approach on an annual basis, however the process varies a bit each year as we _sense and respond _what is needed. It is a collaborative, transparent process, based on personal needs and open feedback.
Obviously, wholeness and radical collaboration are also very evident in our partnerships. In 2018, we harvested the collaboration focus seeds that we planted in the last years, and really took our partnering to another level by for example co-fundraising with one of our partner organization. euforia is so grateful for being part of an amazing network of like-minded organisations, where we meet as humans and collaborate through openness, heightened self awareness and extreme trust in people’s good intentions. Therefore, our 2018 was full of love, enriching learning-exchanges, incredible co-creations, wonderful collaborations and mind-blowing pilots. There were so many beautiful souls that we cannot fit all of them into our annual report, but you definitely made our year!!! Thank you!
In the following annual report we have been working on giving more direct voices to our volunteers and partners and to focus on some core topics rather than all. However, let’s start with a short in- troduction to euforia, what we do and our major achievements in 2018.
Love & euphoric greetings, Magdalena
