This year the Edmond de Rothschild Foundations entered into partnership with Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation. We kicked it off by taking our cohort’17 to Lisbon where the fellows got to interact with Portuguese entrepreneurs from Maze Impact (view video)

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The experience really hammered in the notion that in order for us to truly create and contribute to the world, we have to be able to connect countless dots, to cross-pollinate ideas from a wealth of disciplines, to combine and recombine these pieces and build new dreams….for ourselves ….for others ….for all.

As I reflected on the migrant experience in Portugal and how it’s the only country that doesn’t have any right-wing negative rhetoric about how refugees are bad for the economy…how it’s the one country that though doesn’t have the same mechanisms in place that other European countries have to settle migrants….it still opened its arms to them….I feel compelled to call on all nations to support them.

This is a piece that sheds light on the issue : Refugees Deeply: Portugal Offers Refugees a Warm Welcome, but Can’t Get Them to Stay (https://www.newsdeeply.com/refugees/articles/2017/09/01/portugal-offers-refugees-a-warm-welcome-but-cant-get-them-to-stay)
If you don’t want to do it yourselves at least offer expertise and resources to the ones that do. I’m proud of the Ariane de Rothschild fellows who hand in hand with Portuguese entrepreneurs spent time thinking of ways to solve some of these issues.

If we just put some effort in collaborating we will come to understand that no work, no idea, stands alone, but that all good, true and beautiful things are networks, ecosystems of intertwined parts, related entities and similar works that just need authentic channeling and the willingness to share.

We can build a future where people are free; to live , to love and to build.

Reima Yosif