When I decided to take the certification in LEGO® SEROIUS PLAY®, surfing on the internet, I found another agency that delivered the program in 3 days for a much lower price.

I asked my friend and colleague Fabrizio Faraco which was the difference between the two options and, among the other things, he answered me: “the difference is in the power of the community…”

At that moment I didn’t understand what exactly this meant, but I trusted him and in Feb of 2016 I took my certification with Per Kristiansen.

On October of the same year, I went to Billund for my first Global Community Meeting, and there I met Gloria de Leon, Narudee (Poom) Kristhanin, and @Mercedes Narváez and it was immediately loved. One year later I met Laetitia Ramberti, another lightning stroke…

But it was during the official dinner of 2018 Community meeting that I really understood the words of my friend….” the power of the community”

Cristiana Genta and me, we were dining together with the other ladies, we are enjoying the evening and with the complicity of some good glasses of wine, we decided to create “the wine chat ladies”, taking inspiration from the interesting coffee chat project just presented during the conference.

The reason behind this initiative was mainly the pleasure to spend more time together (although it would be  “virtually” due to the distances among us), to share insights and experiences, without waiting for another long year.

So we start to fix a monthly skype call, not easy to organize in three different continents (Europe, Latin America and Asia) but we got it, and during one of our skype, Mercedes shared with us a touching experience regarding an LSP workshop she facilitated with a group of ladies that received family abuses. In the same time, Laetitia had the chance to facilitate a workshop with Poom in Bangkok, and she was so excited to see Poom in action and overall for this new experience…

These two things inspired us for:

·       using LSP to help others with a charity initiative

·       having the chance to work together

 So we decided to find a way to organize a pro-bonus international workshop.

It was not easy. We have to combine a lot of things, including:

·       Find a no-profit international company that was interested in participating in an LSP workshop and in organizing the event

·       Find a date and a place that could work for all of us

·       Try to contain our expenses     

After some months of research the occasion arrived.

The Unicef Italian Marketing and Fundraising Director, that had already participated in one of my LSP meet up, was enthusiastic for our proposal: she had some issues inside of her team and LSP could be a great opportunity for helping her.

Our project could be realized! 

The organization was very complex but at the end we succeeded, and on Oct 10th, directly from Billund, after the global community meeting the wine ladies moved to Rome at their own expenses, to facilitate a pro-bono workshop on Team Life to help Unicef Marketing e Fundraising Team (almost 50 people) to regain their strong values, to bring out challenges and to find sharing actions to improve efficiency & effectiveness of the Division.

Despite the difficulties, the experience was amazing. A lot of lessons learned, a lot of insights, a lot of sharing, a lot of nice moments…

So, this is the power of our community… a “place” where you have the opportunity to meet special persons, aimed from the same values, who are not discouraged by distances and difficulties, that enjoy to spend some time together, who are exiting to deliver special projects for a good purpose, and of course for creating occasions to drink a good glass of wine together… ?

I want to thank you, Robert Rasmussen, and Per Kristiansen for creating this community and give us, year by year, the opportunity to meet us and grow together.