HorseDream® The Corporate Approach
Gerhard about their journey to HorseDream and EAHAE International
Karin and I had been self-employed since 1983 in
the IT-world, working around the clock. In 1989 we decided to go on a riding
holiday. I was nearly 40 years old when I climbed a horse for the first
time, and since then, I have not looked back.
We bought our first horse three months later and
then the second one. We went through the so-called typical German riding
education for one year and eventually left this scene because of the
treatment of the horses. We continued learning on our own for the next two
years.
The priorities in our daily life had changed
entirely. Our IT-business- customers were interested in what we did with the
horses, too, and instead of inviting them for dinner, we invited them to the
horses.
At the end of 1995, one of our employees
suffered from stress hormones and wanted to leave the company. We offered
her a six months sabbatical but asked her to come with us to the horses once
a week. She agreed, worked with us once a week, without a concrete concept,
and three months later, she felt fine again to get back into IT-business.
This experience was the reason to develop a horse assisted program for
corporates.
We started with test seminars with our business
friends and their families and went to the open market at the beginning of
1998. From the very first beginning, we did nearly everything on our own -
with the help of lots of books and with the help of the horses. The name of
our educational product HorseDream stands for two facets of leadership,
management, and personal development:
The Horse is a very present being, very real,
always living in the here and now. That makes people, working with horses in
Horse Assisted Seminars, learn about 100 % presence, responsibility,
self-confidence, awareness, and all that is necessary to develop leadership
skills.
But the Horse, with its historical and mystical
background, is also a Dream. It opens horizons, changes belief systems,
empowers people to step out of the box.
So HorseDream means exactly what is needed in
modern business life: reality and vision – both concepts are incorporated in
this name. Today our partners and we live this dream: to establish Horse
Assisted Education as a standard way of further education in companies,
organizations and for personal purposes.
In August 2004 we founded the EAHAE, the
"European" Association for Horse Assisted Education. The vision was to
establish and develop Horse Assisted Education (HAE) as a general form of
personal and professional development in enterprises, organizations,
institutions, societies, and for personal purpose. Therefore we collected
all sorts of trainers and people who were interested in HAE without looking
for any quality standard. The tasks just were to connect all, to publish the
activities on the internet platform, and to organize a yearly conference.
Everybody who was providing HAE in Europe could
become a full member. An associated member could become, who was providing
HAE outside Europe or who was not yet providing Horse Assisted Education but
wanted to cooperate with a full member or to support the work of the
association.
The yearly membership fee included for both
kinds of members: a personal profile on the EAHAE website, linked to the own
website, the right to use the EAHAE database with press articles, videos,
radio and TV performances, to use internal EAHAE documents, information, and
presentations, to apply to attend the annual conference and EAHAE seminars
and trainings, and to participate in the EAHAE website award.
With the 4th Annual Conference which was held 14
– 16 November 2008 at Sielanka Farm, near Warsaw, Poland, the development of
the organization was brought to a new level. Stepping into the next period
meant to focus on quality. Since 2009 a new member can only become, who
first attended an EAHAE authorized Train The Trainer seminar. Before having
participated in this seminar, new members can be associated as "EAHAE
Friends".
At the qualifying seminar participants
experience five categories of hands-on exercises:
- watching
- leading
- communication at distance and nearness
- goal orientation
- teamwork
They learn about three fundamental categories of
transfer models:
- leading positions
- team atmosphere and company's culture
- personal development
Participants get a one-day and a two-day
concept, hand-outs for participants included. An EAHAE member is allowed to
use these concepts and adapt them to own opportunities as the number of
horses, number of participants, facility etc. |
