by Carlos Marti | July 2019
My name is Carlos Marti (29), full-time software developer at Trivago in Leipzig, Germany, part-time student at the Open University UK, and active volunteer, collaborator and ambassador of Eco-Logic Thailand and TCDF.
Last April 2019, I got the opportunity to get to stay and experience “Eco-logic Thailand” for a whole week during my Easter holidays.
I didn’t know much about them, apart of some beautiful pictures I saw in their website, and the amazing activities program that our yoga teacher Estelle from Akaljoti Akaljoti had prepared for us.
But I never imagined how inspired, moved, and touched I would come back home after the trip.
To start with, I got surprised by the beautiful accommodation, the magical location, the delicious vegetarian food, the amazing way I got treated, the unforgettable people I met, and all the activities and experiences I lived in just one week… It was just incredible!!
But this was just a part of it. During my stay, I got very lucky to get to know Ingrid, one of the founders of Eco-Logic and TCDF, and I got the opportunity to exchange a lot of nice conversations, with which my inspiration started to flourish. She told me all the history about the foundation, how it all started, the projects they have, what they have achieved, how they help the local children, the community, etc.
And from the very first moment, I wanted to find “excuses” (reasons) and ideas on how I could keep connected to this amazing place. And that’s why I didn’t hesitate to offer myself to collaborate and help with anything that was in my hands!
Ingrid and I spent some time talking and finding out what I could do with my current expertises and talents that could help Eco-Logic and TCDF the most, as well as something that could potentially cover possible gaps they still had.
Since I am a Software Engineer, and the world is moving towards digitalisation, we thought we could take advantage of it. So we defined some tasks I could do to help: maintaining the existing websites for Eco-logic and TCDF, creating new content, help with the SEO to get more visibility, and as an exciting idea we came up with making a mobile app for Eco-logic.
The main goal of this app is to engage the guests of Eco-logic before, during and after their stay, and help them build a personalised and unique experience, providing them easy to find information, an intelligent system to engage with the activities and the children, and much more! So far we got the design of the app done, and we are doing very good progress on the development face. I’m really enjoying and learning while developing it!
Additional ways I have taken to collaborate with them have been presenting Eco-logic Thailand and TCDF to a big group of colleagues of mine in what we call a “Vitamins Session”, where the main goal was to tell them about my experience, inspire them to change little things in their lives that could somehow help the world, and of course, to make them aware, interested and excited to maybe visit Eco-Logic some day!
I have also recently proposed Eco-logic and TCDF as a candidate on the Trivago footprint 2019 program, for which the company has a budget of 100,000€ this year to collaborate in charity projects that the employees present. My own personal goal is to reach at least an amount between 5000 and 10,000€ that will be donated to the Foundation. But the final amount that TCDF will get will depend on how many colleagues of mine vote for my proposal. So at the moment my responsibility is to create an article and video to make my colleagues see why they should vote for the initiative, and then make some campaign during the month of July to get as many votes as possible! We will keep you updated on the final result, so stay tuned!!
To conclude with my experience sharing, I want to say that taking all these actions is something that makes me really happy and gives me one more reason to wake up everyday with a smile in my face, because I know that a lot of kilometres away from my home there is a group of nice and amazing children that will benefit from actions like this and will help them live also a happy life and wake up with a smile in their faces.
Small actions can make a big difference!
So far my experience at Eco-logic has been the most fulfilling trips I have ever done, and the one that has made an impact in my life, improving many aspects of it.
Thank you!!