The last week of November was an exiting week for EJWP. Our kick off week of EJWP3 was really happening! Not only was the group finaly be able to meet face-to-face for most of the participants, the week also had a great programme with its connection to the World Impact Summit and in depth personal moments working towards peronal leadership.
The week had a spectacular kick off with a warm welcome at the City Hall of Bordeaux by Laurent Guillemin, mayor’s deputy in charge of the natural resources, water & energy and Gauthier Renaud, head of programme WIS, presented the World Impact Summit and pointed out the importance of highlighting water as a key pillar in this event. Neil Dhot, Executive Director of Aqua Fed, joined to support the key role of young water professionals in moving the water sector forward and also stressed on their presence in UN Water Conference 2023. With a visit to the Submarine Base, a unique site established during World War 2, new perspectives and inspiration were created. At the end of the dat Neil launched his question for the first collaborative project of EJWP3. Together they brainstormed on “Global data mapping and collection on the performance of private water operators”. EJWP3 will work on this project for three months and present the final results in March during EJWP3 in Belgium. Closing this full and inspiring day with a networking dinner with Neil and Gauthier.
Mirela EJWP3 participantTuesday and Wednesday are the traditional EJWP Personal Leadership Training days, this time by our trainer, Jennifer Cronick. EJWP3 presented their life journey and moments and behaviours which made them the way they are today. Working together on the 7 habits of highly effective people they discussed the need to focus and prioritize the tasks to improve performance. Including the key role of reaching out for help and delegation as a way for effectiveness. A benchmark of the second day was the prisoner’s dilemma where each participant communicated a block that hinder their development and performance and then brainstorm solutions to move forward to solve this obstacle. The feedback of participants was great, and they pointed out that they will apply the takeaways from this training in their daily life and work. The day ended up with a networking dinner with Water Europe and French Water Partnership.
The final two days of the kick of week EJWP3 attended the World Impact Summit. This event was rich with different topics and water as a key pillar. The main contribution of EJWP was in “Circularity in Water Consumption” session where Naomi Timmer moderated it and both of Loïc Charpentier (EJWP1) and Dimitris Kofinas (EJWP3) provided their insights on this topic. On Friday morning we closed the circle with a Masterclass / online field trip with Veolia, who provides the water management for the Bordeaux area, seeing PPP in real, discussing flood risk management and Citizen engagement with the water system.
“From 29- 03 Nov/ Dec 2021, I participated in the EJWP3 training week in an online format. The week was organized in a hybrid format and two of us participated online. Although it was not quite the ‘real thing’ (I missed the live events with other participants and the successful online involvement in the live program of the World Impact Summit), I would say that we all benefited from the interesting program in the hybrid format and the lively and rich discussions during the personal development plan activities.” Mirela Sertic Peric, University of Zagreb, Croatia.