Time for a good deed: Ranga's story from our Sri lanka journey

In the end of October I discovered a small piece of Sri lanka with Jost. It's has been on our travel list for a while and it exceeded all our expectations. I expected that it will be quite turisty and that locals will be very money oriented. It was nothing like that. We were often the only visitors, since we arrived in the highlight of the low season. We had only 1 day of rainy weather, we met some incredibly friendly locals and we had the best food, yoga class, massage and surf ever. We also finally had the time to really talk to each other, reflect on life, set some goals and make some decisions for the future.

 Sri lanka, we're coming back ...

Our first stop was Unawatuna, a small village near Galle in the south of Sri lanka. In Unawatuna, we really had fun. We met all these amazing international people, that were mostly the same age. So we talked about life, made fun of stuff, shared travel stories, organized shared picnics, drank beer and dreamt about plans for the future. Everyone was very openminded and likeminded, so I felt like home, like I could stay there forever and become a part of this community.

Happy international mix: USA, Chile, GB, Netherlands & us

In Unawatuna hostel, they also had very friendly staff. One of the staff members was Ranga. He is a rikshaw driver and a tourist guide. He took us to a jungle beach the first day and picked up us again in few hours. He also took us to Galle and we went shopping and he helped us with money chaning etc. We really liked him, he was fun, friendly and organized.

Jošt, Ranga & Urša & yummy coconut

 Insight in Ranga's lifestyle

Ranga is a simple person, wanting to make the most out of his life to be able to create a better life for his children. He used to work in a clothing factory, where he became a manager. Even with that position he still earned 200 eur a month, which was disappointing for him. That is more above average salary in Sri lanka, but as you can imagine, it's still nothing. He can live an okay life with this money in Sri lanka – he can educate his kids, buy sth nice for his wife, take care of his family. He can't travel outside of Sri lanka since it's too expensive for him. I felt that for him it's enough that he likes his job and that his kids are healthy. The next day we hired Ranga for a whole day trip. We liked him since he was super friendly and talkative and he really knew the good places. He took us to turtle farm, herbal farm, Kogalla lake, fruit market, tea plantation and it was a really nice and comfortable trip – much more comfortable than renting a motorbike due to possible rain sour newhowers and numerous road accidents and crazy bus drivers. On the way back to Unawatuna we stopped at his family house at a very random place in a village in the middle of the rice fields with only few houses there, chickens, dogs and palm trees. It was the best part of the day, since we actually got to see the house of his family and meet them.

 warm welcome to their family

They were the simpliest, happiest and most generous people ever. You could see that they don't have much – furniture in the house was simple and a big rice field next to the house showed that they are farmers.

 Guests, welcome @ Thiththagalla, Ahangama 

We met five people – two older men, that were super skinny. I asked why is that and Ranga said that it's normal if you work on the field your whole life. True, they are very skinny but also very muscular, they seemed strong. Then there was an older women, that was hiding behind everyone most of the time, she seemed quite shy, she is Ranga's wife mother. Then there was a younger women, Ranga's wife sister, that was pregnant and her 8-year old child. He was very shy but also super excited that we were there. They treated us like a king and a queen – they cut some fresh coconuts and brought us some bananas straight from the tree. We were talking only with Ranga and he was translating – nobody else spoke any english. 

 They treated us like friends

When we were leaving, Ranga told us that his wife's mother is very sick, that she has cancer and that it's very stresfull for him and his family. When we arrived back to Unawatuna, we paid everything and gave him some small money for his family and his wife's mother.

Our comfortable life continued and we headed further down south – Ranga took us to Weligama, cute fishing and surfing village. On the way we also stopped to take some pictures, see the sunset and we got some food in the bakery. 

 Ranga's rikshaw

In Weligama, we decided to stay in a nicer place right next to the beach. We decided that we deserve it and anyway it was still very cheap for western standards – 40 eur a night for 2 people with breakfast. It just seems expensive, since we spent a night before in a place for 10 eur a night and it was just fine.
Then I was thinking – why the hell did we give only 20 eur to Ranga to help his family but we don't have a problem to spend more on our accomodation, have a nice dinner, buy nice souvenirs ... ? Of course we are egoistic people and it's our money. We worked hard for it. But Ranga also works hard, often 12 hours a day. He doesn't have much – he has a house and his kids go to school. He drinks a beer with his friends. Just like we do. But he doesn't travel the world or have any of the western luxuries.

 School in Sri lanka (not quite the European classroom, right?)

Two weeks ago, Ranga contacted me on Facebook. He told me that situation with his wife's mother got worse and that she needs a big operation soon. I immediatly felt like – seriously, you are asking me for money now? Why, Ranga, why? But then I was thinking. I would do the same. I mean he saw that I bought a dress for 50 eur. That is ¼ of his monthly salary. I saw the look on his face when I bought the dress. I felt a bit ashamed and I explained to him that 50 eur is normal price for a nice dress in Europe or even a cheap price for a designer dress I got for for special occasions.

 My srilankan dress that cost 1/4 of an average srilankan salary

Operation needed: cancer on uterus

So I decided to get more information about his wife's mother operation. She has a cancer on her uterus, so they will probably have to take out her whole uterus. For slovenians, it's called: endometrijski rak telesa maternice.  Ranga said that the operation will cost $1700 and that it has to happen quickly.

How much money is $1700 for someone from Sri lanka?

If we imagine that an average salary in Sri lanka is $150 that makes around 10 salaries for the operation. It's like is Slovenia with an average salary of 1000 eur you'd have to pay 10.000 eur for the operation. For the higher class, it wouldn't be the problem at all. For the middle class, it would depend, but most of the people would gather money on their own or with the help of friends and family. Our lower class would have a problem paying 10.000 eur and they would probably need help. In reality, they wouldn't need help, since our health care system takes care of someone with cancer. In Sri lanka unfortunately they are not there yet. And we can't blame them – we conquered them for centires, Portugese, Dutch, Britains took their amazing natural resources, while locals stayed on farms.

It's time to do sth nice: let's help Ranga's wife's mother, D. Malani

 

So, you see where I'm going. We are helping Ranga's wife's mother. Why? Just because we can. Ranga can gather $500 from his savings, family and friends. Imagine it as a lower class slovenian family gathering 3000 eur. He is still missing $1200. Me and Jošt will pitch in with 100 eur each. So we still need only 1000 eur.

 

Ranga's wife mother, D. Malani

Is 1000 eur a lot to save a life? Maybe. I don't think so.

Is giving 10, 20, 50, 100 eur a lot?

Depends on your income. 10 eur is few coffees or one evening in Ljubljana center, drinking hot wine. 20 eur is a lunch for 2 people. 50 eur is a nice Christmas gift for your family – 4 tickets for the theatre show. 100 eur is a new winter coat.

Can you give up any of this?

I believe we all can, if we want to. I know that it's different for you and that you're not as motivated as I am to help Ranga; you don't know Ranga, you probalby didn't visit Sri lanka and maybe you've never been to a »third world« country.

If you've been anywhere in Asia you are aware of the luxury life we live in Europe. We have everything – in materialistic sense – houses, cars, we travel, we experience 1000 different things, we eat out, we attend mediation courses, eat fancy food, invest in our personal development.

Srilankan people have everything – connection with their family and friends. Love of their homeland. Much better work life balance. Respect for nature and natural resources. And comparing to the rest of southeast Asia, they are just as hardworking as we are. They try hard. But they don't have an environment, social rights, social system, health system, that would support them.

I don't know exactly what will happen to Ranga's wife mother, if she doesn't get the operation. But we don't need to come there. I believe that we can help her get this operation. 

So, who is Ranga's wife's mother, D. Malani from Thiththagalla, Ahangama? 

She is 52, she lives in Thiththagalla, Ahangama, South Sri lanka and as you can see on the picture, she looks much older that 52 years old due to her illness. She has two sons and a daugther and 3 grand children with the 4th one of the way. Her husband is sick as well, he has astma and he can't work anymore. They live only from the support of their children.

 Ranga's daughters, D. Malani granddaughters

You'd like to help? Great!

 We will collect donations until 25th of December. When we collect 1000 eur, I will send money to Ranga's bank account and his mother will have the operation. I will update you about everything that will be going on with Ranga's wife's mother and you can expect pictures of her after the operation. In case we collect less than 1000 eur I will talk to Ranga if less money helps or not and together with you I will decide what to do with the money in this case. If you donate 10 eur, we need 100 people.  If you donate 20 eur, we need 50 people. If you donate 40 eur, we need 25 people. If you donate 1000 eur, we are done. :)

Also, if you visit Sri lanka, Ranga can arrange you a visit to his house, you can meet his mother and maybe even stay in Unawatuna hostel. I can also send you a copy of her medical report - I didn't want to add it to the blog, since it's a preety personal thing, but I can share it with you, if you need it to double check.

Good deeds, good karma. Merry Christmas and please share this blog, thank you!

Ursa, Jost & Ranga

From 9 to 5: (How) will generation Y change (slovenian) work culture?

I’ve been working for more than 10 years now. Not full time, obviously, but I had a bunch of student jobs. Since 2011 I earned more than 20.000 eur with my student jobs. But it was not about the money - it was about gaining experiences, discovering what I really want to do, what is important in a job for me on as a part of my never ending dream job hunt mission. I made in depth analysis of learning outcomes from each job I had - in terms of job expectations - and shared some thoughts on how will we, generation Y, change the work culture forever.

It's all about expectations

I’ve been thinking a lot about job expectations lately. What does an employer expect from me, what are their fears, wishes and what do I expect from them, what do I wish, what do I fear. I also realized there is a huge mindset gap between generation Y and older generation. As Petra said last week in her TEDxUL talk, we as generation Y have a huge need for purpose in our work. We also crave diverse work, autonomy, big picture, impact of our work on society, receiving feedback. We are quite needy, older generation would say. But I would say back to them - you are quite crazy, staying in a job you don’t even like for 40 years.

I think that for our parents it was about receiving salary in the end of the month, so they could live well. Now, we also want this, but we also want much more. Our parents had it much simpler - as long as their job allowed them to go home at 4 pm so they could pursue their hobbies in the afternoon and take care of their family, it was enough. Also, ideal situation for every company, having employees with low expectations and lack criticism.

The expectations we have today are quite overwhelming - definitely for the companies, but sometimes even for ourselves. On one hand we want purpose, impact, autonomy and on the other hand we just went through a big recession, where even some of my brightest friends, that gained a lot of experiences as students, searched for a job for more than 6 months.

Zmelkoow: BIT  - the point of life is lying at the beach …

In high school I was dreaming about a job, where I wouldn't have to work. Someone would pay me to spend time on the beach. Well … I quickly realized, that you have to work in life, especially if you don't want to live with your parents forever. With Zois scholarship I had I also realized that you can buy stuff with money and above all, you can travel if you have money. Lost in life, without any awareness of my passions or strengths, I applied to communication studies at FDV.

ŠS PRSS - school for life

In my first year of college I  developed a very important goal: to discover, what I want to do in my life. I can’t remember what exactly triggered this goal, but for sure ŠS PRSS (student PR society) had a lot to do with it. I was attending educational lectures called PRedigra where I was listening to different professionals presenting their jobs.

I always had a question :D

I realized that as a student of communications I can do sooo many different things (from project management, copywriting, dealing with media etc.). There was too much choice and I had no idea how can I decide. That's why I got involved in many student projects, that helped me raise my self awareness regarding my strengths, weaknesses and wishes for the future.

ŠS PRSS was not about gaining PR knowledge. Most importantly, I learned how to manage my time, organize events,  communicate with people, motivate the team etc. 7 years ago I was horrible at all of those things. I was an annoying, smart ass egocentric person and a quite horrible team member. Not saying that I'm awesome now, but there are some changes.

Shaping my expectations

Besides student projects I always had a student job  - due to my studies I had a lot of time for different student jobs. All those jobs very much more than a source of finances - I was gaining experiences and I developed a sense of what I like and don’t like in a job. I have a quite detailed list of what I want from a job today. I could not come up with this list, if it wasn’t for 10 years of experiences from a range of students jobs I had. Some of you might be thinking - you are expecting too much, you are young, you should adapt. Sure. But I was adapting for the past 10 years already. Now I allow myself to have high expectations. And I do not expect that any job will cover all of those expectations. At least not soon.

What I wish for in a job:

• My idea of an ideal full time job is 30 hours a week with unlimited unpaid vacations or at least 35 days of paid vacations
• Having a great mentor, that supports me, gives feedback and inspires me as a leader
• Working with a team of people, that are smart, fun to work with and have similar values
• Working in environment, that supports improvement, is open to change, flexible work hours, healthy lifestyle, work life balance, uses new technology, respects your values etc.

I am glad to say that my current job covers numbers 2 and 3 very well and it partially covers number 4. I am working on improving number 1 and number 4.

My smart ass message to generation Y regarding our work attitudes:

• explore and observe yourself, what do you want, what you don't want, if you didn’t do it as a student, start today, it’s never too late,
• recession brought a very unhealthy feelings into our society meaning you should accept every job there is (it’s better to search longer than settle for a very shitty job),
• you can have high expectations towards your job, except in a case when you either do not have any work experience or you do not have any financial security - in those two cases, take any job you can get,
• If you are not satisfied with your job, start looking for a new job,
• You can always quit your job and get a new one,
• Change jobs until you find the one, where you wake up in the morning and are happy to go there
• We have the power to create a new set of work ethics: respecting work life balance, private life, having a freedom towards where and when you work, having an option to bring your values to the workplace, creating 6-hour work day, creating new standards in the area of soft skills (nonviolent communication practices as sth normal etc.), treating people as human beings etc.

How did I come up with my wish list?

From each student job I had, I learned sth. Not just content-wise, but it also shaped my attitude towards work. I checked my “študentski servis” account and since 2011 I earned more than 20.000 eur through student work. OMG, where is all my money? Right, I invested it in travelling and education. Best decision ever. Of course, I was very lucky with my Zois scholarship and the fact that I lived with my parents until I graduated helped a lot.

Make your own list of your learnings

You had a lot of jobs so far. Volunteer, paid, student, regular, freelancing, whatever. If it makes sense to you, follow the method and analyse your previous experiences. This can help you shape your expectations towards your job. Next time you get a question on a job interview regarding your expectations, it will be a very easy question to answer.

Stop reading, if you're not interested. Seriously, this will go on for a while. I shortened it 4 times. It's still long.

My student jobs from 2004 - 2015

Delo tiskarna

When I was 15, I had my first paid job. I got 600 tolars (around 3 eur) per hour.

• I don't want to do physical work, standing 8 hours a day is horrible,

• I hated the routine, creativity level was 0.

Delo call centre

• Boring job can make you tired (just from being so bored). Horrible. 

Student jobs

Working in a bar

• communication skills are very important for managing choleric people,
• Have an awesome boss in quite awesome; Iztok once said: “This is a job you do besides your studies. You can not work more than 15 hours a week.” Respect!

Cuttysark pizza girl

I was even making pizzas, yes. I took any job I could get.

• people that worked there had totally different mindset and I could not relate to the content of their conversations at all. Do not want to work with people like that.

Promotions in big supermarkets

• If I'm not interested in the products I promote I'm not motivated to really sell it to the people.

In the end of my first year as a student I realized that I want to gain experiences relevant for the area of communications. I saw that student organization was looking for journalists and I got my first experience of a real selection process.

Journalist at Šouvizija

• work of a journalist is a very dynamic, since you meet a lot of new people, it's never the same, so there is no routine, you learn a lot
• I can learn anything, things I didn't believe I can learn - if someone pushes me to do it - I learned how to use camera, edit videos etc
• I loved the flexibility and the schedule because I could work almost anytime and my coworkers were simply amazing, everyone was under the age of 30, mostly 20
  
  

Want to know how much fun we had at Šouvizija and how openminded was our editor Martin? Check out this video I made: https://vimeo.com/11995225

Receptionist in a hostel DIC

• More work I have, the better. Time passes fast and I enjoy the stress of a long to-do list.

Eventmanager at Prosperia

• having an office in the city centre in very practical to organize other things in life
• I like event management only if I like the content of the event

PR for project Simbioza

• Good leader can motivate you a lot (thank you Žiga)
• some people really don't like if you think too much with your own brain and are proactive, some people love it and some people are allergic to it
• it's important to reach clear financial expectations, volunteering has a limit

 

TBA, Teambuilding academy

• Loved dynamic, creative work, where you don't sit in the office, sometimes we spent a whole day in the nature on a teambuilding programme,
• The team is one of the most important things and there's a huge difference if you work with people, that are your friends or with people, that have a big distance towards you,
• reading academic articles and books for understanding theoretical background of things you do, like managing teams or motivating people is very important and valuable,
• Motivating, energetic and positive boss can motivate you endlessly (thank you Luka),
• If sth is a big part of organizational culture (like attitude towards work-life balance) it's very hard to change this so you either have to accept it or let it go. 

 Luka and other amazing people - TTT4 generation

Youth trainer (freelance)

I was delivering week-long non-formal education trainings for young people around Europe.

• It is exhausting to travel all the time and if you travel all the time it's not fun anymore,

• working abroad means being away from your family, friends,
• I loved the international environment, International people, different opinions, different backgrounds, opportunity to be creative, open-mindedness of teams,
• Most of all I love the feeling that I am doing something that has an impact, participants do not only gain a lot of knowledge, they change their believes, develop their values,
• dependency on public funds such as Erasmus Plus sucks the life and time out of you.

Community manager at FlyKly

I worked in an international startup in a very small team.

• I had a great boss, Niko is great with people, motivating, understanding, fun,
• Niko was very dedicated to his work but he could understand that it's his business, not mine and he accepted that after 5 p.m. I work on my personal projects,
• having a great relationship with your boss can also be very valuable, since he was very open towards my suggestions and ideas,
• I learned that the office location can affect your life a lot: my way to work from Šiška through Tivoli park to Trnovo was meditation on it’s on. 

Public speaking trainer at Dober stik

I took my passion for training to another level and started collaborating with Alenka and Nina.

• it's not a good idea to start a business with someone you do not know very well,

• be very very clear to clear up expectations, team roles, relations, finances, motives,
• Having a wide range of knowledge is something very useful,
• time management, organization, good communication skills are crucial skills for having your own business besides the professional knowledge you gotta have.

Cofounder and trainer at zavod ImpACT

In January, me and Alenka started zavod ImpACT. It is still ongoing and we learned a lot in the past year.

• having some kind of financial security is very important, that you are not stressed by paying your bills in the end of the month (big thanks to our boyfriends and also - playing with startups is a privilege, not everyone can afford that),
• I loved the lifestyle, it was very dynamic; we were developing workshops, delivering workshops, communicating with participants, business partners, attending educational events, having meetings while walking to Rožnik ...
• Even delivering workshops can become a routine,
• As my own boss, I have very high expectations towards myself (very unhealthy),
• having another person my age with the same values and drive as myself is something very inspirational.

Change things. Hunt your dream job. Don’t settle.

To finish this very long blog post, I want to say: develop your self awareness. Explore your interests. Find out who you are, your drive, your values. Search for a job, don’t settle for a first one you see. Develop expectations towards your job. Hunt your dream job. Change the status quo. Push for changes. Improve things. Get your work life balance working just the way you want to. Be happy.