YYZ – LHR – BER: terminally robbed of sleep
My first week in Berlin defied expectations, allayed fears, and ended on a bright – or, rather, darkly lit with strobe lights – note.
I landed in the city on the first morning of June, regretting each forsaken hour of sleep that I had traded for kilos of vacuum-sealed luggage. Upon arrival at the flat and setting off to explore my surroundings, I took in Prenzlauer Berg's pristine architectural splendour for the first time – its young, international, and lively rhythm was unmistakable. It was by being reassuringly outclassed by toddlers cycling past me so fiercely that I also overcame an initial unease towards the bike lanes. Captured on BeReal, my first Berliner outing ended with a grassy nap beneath the Berliner Dom, on the iconic central island Museumsinsel.
Onboarding: “kann nur ein bisschen Deutsch”
Despite my first attempt at German – ordering a Döner kebab – accomplishing nought, I was surprised at how far the vocabulary from German class carried me on my first day. Still, the language barrier was conspicuous: onboarding modules, contracts, policies, team meetings, and software were in German by default, which I had to make legible by adjusting the Sprach und Region settings accordingly. Nonetheless, coworkers were warm and sensitive to my foreignness. Fluency in Business English was ubiquitous, whereas I could barely muster the occasional German filler word – “ja!” “genau!” “stimmt!” Throughout the week, I shed my perfectionistic shell and saw minor improvement in my spoken German, even though self-expression regularly came at the ritual sacrifice of grammatical accuracy.
Workplace Culture
An intern I befriended had walked me through IJM’s array of project management interfaces, a testament to the NGO’s adaptive and forward-thinking ethos. In the same vein, one colleague and I bonded over a shared love for the Apple ecosystem (i.e., MacBook supremacy over the, no shade, ThinkPads we were provided). In charge of spiritual formation, she works to align daily operations with the values of spirituality and self-knowledge that lawyer Gary Haugen founded IJM on. These anchors guide, motivate, and ground the organisation’s dedicated advocacy work. Spirituality is operationalised through a stillness hour every morning – a time for prayer, meditation, and (my) late breakfasts. Sharing prayers in this institutional setting, I have come to better appreciate how faith is woven into humanitarian work and capable of mobilising a global network for systems change. At the individual level, it empowers employees to deal with challenging and distressing topics, such as human trafficking and online sexual exploitation of children.
Having observed through an agnostic lens, I found Wednesday’s conversational circle particularly reverent: we were seated around a projected screen and reviewed updates from other IJM offices on their ongoing work. We followed this acknowledgement with prayers on their behalf – some of whom were in the throes of litigating cases while others celebrated closed chapters. With this, I gained further insight into the organisation’s global structure and into how, for many, faith is closely tied to themes of hope, humanity, and justice. In relation to my ongoing leadership journey, this recalls the idea of transcendence – as discussed throughout the Oxford Character Project – to involve an expansive awareness beyond one’s immediate context, which is institutionalised here at the leadership level. I remain keen to see whether contemplation periods temper what can become unchecked transcendence (overstimulation and detachment), helping anchor the shared humanity and moral principles that inform this work.
Project Scope
After two days of onboarding, I was introduced to the project scope: develop advocacy tools to combat trafficking in human beings (THB), harmonise the fractured EU legal landscape, and institute national referral mechanisms (NRMs) that improve investigatory and prosecutorial capacities. Concerned with safeguarding the rights of THB victims – a challenge that intersects legal, economic, and psychosocial systems – NRMs represent a crucial governance step forward in tightening the current gap between legislation and operational realities. My assignment comes at a critical juncture, as the deadline for transposing a revised EU directive approaches, generating momentum for potential legislative changes in the Bundestag (parliament) and opportunities for CSOs to inform evidence-based best practices. Within my team – Programs and Advocacy – I have been fortunate enough to witness these conversations happen in real time, one with a senior public prosecutor and another with a member of parliament.
Anticipating
As the workweek drew to an end, I found myself exhausted and exhilarated in equal parts. I look forward most to learning about the subject matter and the nature of conducting legal work itself, especially in a foreign context. Even the ‘mundane’ act of parsing legislative text, some of which is available only in German, feels like an enthralling privilege that draws from the line of profession I hope to pursue. In addition to the language barrier, I am working on refining my off-hours and implementing systems around getting sufficient sleep and nutrition. I live in close proximity to my workplace – a beautifully lit, eco-brutalist office – yet my punctuality remains indefensibly Canadian and ‘a function of’ (as a German colleague once dropped in casual conversation) standard practice at the University of Toronto.
Brancusi, Berghain, and 'Bare Tings' at Alexanderplatz
One final cultural-bridging moment worthy of mention: guided by my tourist sensibilities and 'pursuant to' an informal list of Berlin must-dos, I divided my first weekend between a date at the Neue Nationalgalerie's Brancusi sculpture exhibit and a sublime (10-hour) nightclubbing experience at Berghain.