Expert Volunteer Assignments
With Expert Volunteer Assignments, we invest in initiatives by making knowledge and expertise of Achmea employees available to charity organisations. By deploying professional Achmea employees, we increase the impact of charity organisations. In addition, a volunteer assignment offers opportunities for personal development for Achmea employees and is an important part of Achmea’s TOP programme (Talent, Development, Performance).
With the Expert Volunteer Assignments, we are making an impact on the following Sustainable Development Goals to which we also contribute from the Impact Fund programme.
Bastiaan Schepman is committed to helping other people every week with a remote assignment from the Achmea Foundation
An hour-long call that lets you make a social impact on another continent? Bastiaan Schepman does it. As manager International Partnerships & Networks at Achmea, he is using his expertise, experience and network to help Eden Care in Rwanda launch a new product. “Because it’s a remote assignment, I not only offer long-term added value, but I can also combine it well with my work and private life”, Bastiaan says.
Bastiaan is still working on his assignment: “I started in early May 2022 and we are expected to finish around December.” The assignment consists of supporting and advising a startup in Rwanda. This is where his knowledge and experience in the field of international claims and healthcare comes in handy: “I had wanted to do something using my experiences to help others for some time and through the Achmea Foundation I found a matching assignment.
It soon turned out that sharing lessons learned at Zilveren Kruis, Centraal Beheer and Achmea was most interesting for the startup in Rwanda. Bastiaan is also using his own knowledge in product development, sales and IT to launch the first group health insurance in Rwanda. And he is not doing that alone: “During the weekly calls, I find out what their challenges are, brainstorm with them and try to hook up with a colleague who can tell more about them.” So far, seven colleagues from various divisions have already enthusiastically participated in his assignment. In this way, he makes optimal use of the input and knowledge from Achmea.
Bastiaan confirms that the assignment also gives him a great deal of satisfaction: “You can see that they benefit tremendously from our knowledge and experience and really put it to use in product development. That’s really cool to see!” He therefore hopes that by December of this year, they will have secured a number of new collectives and clients so that they can provide health insurance to local people in Rwanda.
Jeroen Lotze did an Expert Volunteer Assignment for the Achmea Foundation in Tanzania:
"An interesting and very nice time"
Having been interested in working for the Achmea Foundation for years, I signed myself up for an information session of the Foundation late last year to be brought up to date. My interest was immediately rekindled. I was eager to carry out an assignment to see if I could add something in a completely other world (in terms of organisation and country).
After the information session, I was left wondering whether I could add anything to the assignments listed on achmeanet. After a good discussion with Jan Vonk, it turned out that some things were possible and I ended up on the assignment at Sustainable Agriculture Tanzania (SAT). SAT is an organisation that helps make agriculture and livestock breeding more sustainable, and now has about 140 employees.
The assignment: assist in writing a business plan for a section of SAT and reading through the plan of the entire organisation. Initially, the plan was to do this remotely. In that case, you are available to the organisation for 3 months for around 100 hours. This seemed incredibly fun and I was eager to get started with that. I had another conversation with Jan in early April and he indicated that they were also cautiously looking at conducting the assignment locally again. That really got my attention. From then on, everything went into high gear and on 27 May 2022 I was on a plane to Tanzania. With only knowledge of Europe, without knowledge of agriculture and livestock breeding but with a huge dose of energy and enthusiasm (and, I'll admit, also some healthy tension).
The SAT was able to contribute a great deal to my (learning) goals and showed me the importance of a number of things. For instance, I was informed at length of the importance to include your entire team in your plans and objectives, and it is very important that the same image exists within the team. The same applies to giving feedback. This is not a matter of course in Tanzania, but people did it in the end. And it works better if people tell each other what could be done better or differently, rather than a Mzungu (white man) telling them. These are all interesting movements and lessons that you can practice and witness adequately there. Working in a completely different country, in a very different culture and environment is also extremely educational and, above all, terribly fun.
I can look back on a very interesting and enjoyable time at SAT. I learned a lot there and I’ve become a bit of a fan of Tanzania. Being part of an organisation based on an ideology that I hold particularly dear and that also fits perfectly within Achmea’s mission, feels like a privilege. Therefore, I’d like to offer my thanks to all those inside and outside Achmea who make this possible. I believe this is another initiative that makes Achmea unique.
"The trip greatly broadened our perspectives"
Clarissa van der Most and Serge van Verseveld, both of whom work in the Internal Audit department, did an Expert Volunteer Assignment in Ghana through the Achmea Foundation.
We would like to take you through this special experience. It all started with the call to apply for an assignment. No sooner said than done! New assignments appear regularly in the learning environment and this assignment seemed great to us. To describe it briefly, the assignment was about creating a plan in collaboration with Miss Taxi Ghana to increase participation of women in the labour market and develop a training programme. Our Dutch partner, Netics, has developed a device to build drainage systems more quickly. The DrainUpGrader will soon be deployed in Ghana and it is planned to be operated by women. And yes, Miss Taxi Ghana is happy to participate in that.
Our trip to Ghana lasted two weeks in total. After making the necessary preparations, we boarded the KLM plane that took us directly to Accra, the capital of Ghana. Once there, Miss Taxi was already waiting for us. We had set aside the weekend to take some time to acclimatise. It was a great opportunity to get some initial impressions of the new region. Among other things, a visit to the Black Star monument was not to be missed.
The first week was spent mainly holding various meetings. Of course some of those meetings were with Miss Taxi, but also several professors at the University of Ghana. We also visited a few training institutes and interacted with many women in prominent positions. We also spoke to women in the field.
After a full week of many interesting conversations, we went to rural Ghana in the intervening weekend. On the weekend, we settled down near Elmina. A long walk along the beach brought us to the former slave fort. This also included a visit to the fishing port and a market. Along with briefly enjoying the totally different world, we were able to transcribe out all the meetings. After the weekend, it was back to Accra.
There, we once again held various meetings. One of the highlights was a visit to Gifty Anti, a famous Ghanaian woman who has her own talk show on TV. She is keen to help with our project. After a total of about 20 interviews, including at GIZ, we returned home with a very good feeling. The trip greatly broadened our perspectives.
Once back home, the project continued. We hope to submit the grant application soon together with Netics and Miss Taxi Ghana to GIZ. We hope this project will have a good follow-up.