Today is a five year anniversary of the Facebook-post that marks the beginning of GSBTB. If you look 5 years back, do you remember what drove you to write this post and did you expect the reaction it had on the people around you?

The project started with a spontaneous Facebook post in 2012. 2008 I had moved from Sweden to Berlin 2008 to study and work as a journalist covering politics and the city development of Berlin. New in Berlin and Gemany I started thinking a lot about integration and how diverse cities and communities did, could and maybe should work. My own and friends migrant experiences, the growing European xenophobia, as well as what felt like few positive and modern and solution-based ways of dealing with different types of migration, drove me to write a Facebook-post addressing some of the issues with the appeal for newcomers to “get involved”.

Our original idea back in 2012 was to create an easy and modern tool to mobilize social engagement, for new Berliners to get involved locally to make neighborhoods and newcomers profit from each other. We wanted to build bridges, foster intercultural dialogue and create meeting points between old and new.

The Facebook post went viral became a snowball of things we couldn’t have imagined and the journey from that post to a full blown project platform was rapid (although it has included tons of hard work and challenges).

I could never imagined that that Facebook post would become so big. I’m writing this text from a Baku in Azerbaijan where I’ve been speaking on a UN conference about our work. Starting with a FB-post 5 year ago that feels rather surreal. I still remember our first kick off-planning meeting 2012 after the post went viral and everyone had been ”soooo excited and vamos let’s do this!!!” . The meeting ended up being a lame gathering with five rather shy and mismatched people (most of them my friends) at the Roma Theather Café… Still – one year later the ready to go GSBTB launched and fast sky rocked so never judge shaky, shy beginnings 🙂

Annamaria, the growth of GSBTB in the past 5 years is immense, your project won numerous prizes (e.g. Intercultural Innovation Award from UNAOC and BMW 2016). Were you prepared for such success and how did you adapt to your new responsibilities?

Not really. I think you never are “prepared” but life is also always full of surprises but if you work hard and is up for maneuver through constant changes it will all turn out in the end. I think you have to be flexible and take the good with the bad. Building things from scratch is always a lot of trial and error but you should also not don’t be foolish enough to try to reinvent the wheel – take time to learn from others.

I am a strong advocate for trusting your “Bauchgefühl” and have patience. Patience is the key to everything I think. If you’re a real innovator you (hopefully) know your theme/what you’re talking about and have a feeling in which directions things are (and should) be going. But not everybody has. It can take a lot of time and patience to establish your idea and convince people about your cause if you’re dealing with complex issues. As a real Changer, you are often a bit “before” the mainstream with your ideas, analysis and solutions for things. It’s really crucial to hang in there, wait and create your moment. If you’re idea is good, it will for sure come! In general think we have to learn patience more in our society. Change and good things take time… Always.

On a personal level it also took a rather long time for me to “accept” that GSBTB sort of became my life. I had my dips and forgot my own boundaries a couple of times but unfortunately I think that’s normal if you are passionate about your cause. But we take our work very serious in our team but we always remember to have fun. We are dealing with serious issues, but that doesn’t have to mean that either we or our target group want to be or are “serious” 24/7. What you are selling in the end is “positive” ideas for a “negative” social problem – but then the “fun” part needs to be there! Be upset about the problem and serious about solving it, but have fun while creating the solutions (and enjoying life in general)!