Growing the team by helping others

The creator of the format: Sahara Team l.t.d.

Sahara Team is a company with a staff of technicians which plan, organize and manage indoor and outdoor activities. Since 1999 our staff plans, organizes and supplies corporate events: action meeting, incentive, team building and outdoor training. (look into Sahara Team l.t.d.).

What is Social Team Building:

Thanks to the preparation of a substantial part of our staff in education, pedagogy and social rehabilitation we have found some solutions in C.S.R. together with educational and recreational needs of corporate events. This is the beginning of Social Team Building. Social Team Building is an experiential format to aggregate and facilitate the growth of the team in corporate events such as team building and incentive. It has been proposed for the first time at the end of 2008 and has been already chosen by some important companies as Roche, Abbott, Vorwerk Folletto, Axa Mps, Colgate Palmolive, Telepass, Leroy Merlin.

Why Social Team Building:

• Because the difficult economic situation requires immediate and concrete results. Purely playful metaphors couldn’t be suitable to the awareness need of this time and to the daily troubles.

• Because helping others makes us better persons.

• Because living an altruistic experience makes the team more united and facilities group dynamics outside the employment context.

• Because the company is an integral part of a good deed which concretely witnesses its ethics.

What is the difference from other formats:

Experiential metaphor is usually the crucial point of a team building: build a raft, orientate oneself by compass, climb a mountain. In Social Team Building the metaphor is real life with its daily difficulties, obstacles and concrete troubles to be addressed and even transform into opportunities. The activity we propose is different from time to time and it’s specific for the aim, the participants and the location, anyhow the activity ends with a concrete good deed, a solution to a social need. That’s why we call it: a serious game.

What do the participants do concretely?

Operating activities are chosen together with the costumer in accordance with various factors such as:

• Time available

• Profile of participants

• Educational goals

Our know how in social field and our collaboration with organizations and institutions always enables us to identify several opportunities to choose. We always stress some factors during selection:

• The result should be the most immediate and concrete as possible

• Participants must be operationally involved in the activity

• Activity must be designed to stimulate the dynamics required to work on predetermined educational goals from time to time: communication, leadership, team working, problem solving, etc.

In the following table there are some examples of the most suitable activities according to the profile of participants, it’s understood that each project must be evaluated from time to time:

Construction of games and activities for playing areas, social agencies and rehabilitation centers	Construction of wind generators, hydroelectric systems and solar panels with recycled materials for educational aim	Construction of outdoor parks for able-bodied and disabled children	Construction of vertical gardens for schools and environmental education centers	Construction of recreational games for old pleople’s homes

Where you can perform the activity:

Anywhere. We can propose suitable locations or choose an appropriate place together with the company. Consistently with the format we usually choose mid-level accommodations, sometimes outside the tourist routes and with particular attention to saving. Till now we have carried out Social Team Building project in:

• Holidays Farm

• Hotels and conference centers

• Schools

• Social cooperatives

Our task is to identify accommodations and recipients of charitable works compatible with the requirements of logistics and teaching.

How long does it take?

Social Team Building can be adapted to the time you want to spend on experiential activities. Here are some examples performed till now:

• 250 participants from morning to night (Axa Mps)
• 50 participants from morning to night (Roche)
• 7 participants in 4 hours (Colgate)
• 9 participants in 3 hours (Folletto Vorwerk)
• 26 partecipants in 8 hours (Telepass)