Team Retreat

By Lubna Salam

In the last days of 2020, we had an unforgettable bonding experience as a team including 20 members, enjoying the New Year's Holiday together in the lovely north of Iraq. Since it was a very difficult and stressful year for us, we needed to preserve our wellness and mental health for the upcoming year. This helped the team members feel better together and inspired to work, particularly in today's technical and digital workplaces, this retreat offered a space to get the Mosul and Baghdad team together for some real face-to-face time. This retreat was like a celebration for all the hard work that the team has done this year, and it helped everyone to feel respected. These moments and experiences have helped to make us feel reconnected, positive with who we work with and what we do together. It's too hard to be friends with your co-workers without getting to hang out in person. Our team isn't together too often, so we simply had to take pictures and have a lot of fun capturing our time and memories together by shooting photos.

Without Advenature, it couldn't have been possible to do all that in this breathtaking way. Advenature has proven that we can enjoy cheaper and charming locations in Iraq and focus less on the budget. Our experience with them was filled with fun, excitement, and enthusiasm. Yousif Al-Fahad, the founder of Advenature, and his team have drove us by bus, to wonderful destinations over the span of three days;

On the first day, we were taken on a very joyful safari trip with ATBT Safari Kurdistan in Shaqlawa. We then hung out in Shaqlawa’s popular market. On the night, we gathered in a very cozy restaurant to have a welcoming dinner with the team and to introduce everyone to the retreat program for the next two days. On the second day, we headed to the Barzan forests, where we hiked in the charming valleys of plants, trees, and waterfalls. We then finished the day at a really nice restaurant with a lovely view of the Greater Zab river. Our third and last destination was so snowy, in Choman, where we climbed the ice-covered "Bradost" mountain and had so much fun playing in the soft snow together, eating some snacks and drinking Iraqi tea in front of the lit fire. We took in the breathtaking views and awesome hiking in the area and explored more waterfalls. At the end of the day, we tried a very tasty kurdish dinner at Soran before turning back to the hotel.

Advenature is a tourism start-up that kicked off at The Station’s co-working space, that specializes in discovering areas that tourist buses don’t enter, drawing visitors from home and abroad; they provide nature-related activities such as hiking, rowing and camping in a friendly, entertaining and exciting manner. Yousif, the founder of the startup, traveled to various places in Iraq and saw the presence of wonderful beauty that many people hadn’t seen, particularly in the north, so he decided to begin a startup business organising private groups.

The organization’s culture is all about people, and it doesn't exist without them. You'll find that any attempt to create a corporate culture is created by individuals.

Check Advenature’s Page on Facebook and Instagram, and taste the adventures!