ActionxChange 2022

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AxC 2022: Day 13

Empezamos el día con un Piedra, papel o tijera “humano”. Después de este energizer, desayunamos, y tuvimos una sesión dedicada a trabajar nuestros proyectos sociales en todos sus aspectos (financiero, estratégico, etc) y cómo proyectar su viabilidad en el tiempo.

Luego estuvimos trabajando en nuestros pitches, es decir, en la comunicación y presentación de nuestros proyectos y nuestras ideas. Marharita nos explicó los pasos para preparar un pitch exitoso con un contenido eficaz: comenzar con un dato o información impactante, que llame la atención; describir el problema que queremos resolver, su importancia, qué lo causa; dar la solución a través de nuestra idea; cuáles nuestros objetivos SMART; detallar nuestro modelo de financiación...entre otras cosas.

Después de la comida y el descanso, pudimos escuchar las 4 primeras presentaciones o “Elevator pitches” de proyectos sociales: Action x Exodus, A.I.D., Mental Matters, Intercultural Exchange. Fue muy interesante e inspirador para el resto del grupo escuchar la síntesis en 3 minutos que cada grupo hizo de sus proyectos.

Por la noche hicimos un cluedo humano. Nos lo pasamos muy bien buscando pistas y evidencias por todo el Casar, e incluso hubo algún que otro grito de susto de algún participante que vio el fantasma de la Señora Inesa...

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AxC 2022: Day 12

Today we started the day with a very fun energizer led by Marc: the arrancacebes. 

After breakfast, we were divided into 6 groups and spent the morning doing rotating Life skills projects. The topics for each of these workshops, each one led by a different facilitator, were: Communication skills, Positive psychology, Failure Coping mechanisms and Creativity. For example, Íñigo led a one-hour workshop on Positive psychology during which participants had to go through a parcours walking around the fishbowl find and answering to questions about their relationships, goals, their values...In Sara’s workshop, we had the opportunity to explore the obstacles that we encounter when we try to communicate with others and the importance of active listening. 

In the afternoon, we attended the conference of Ángel Alonso Arroba, UWC alumnus who talked to us about International Relations and his inspiring career as a Spanish Diplomat and working for international organizations such as the OCDE.

Then we held the circle of sharing, during which everyone could say something in their preferred language to the group. It was a beautiful moment that allowed us to reflect on what the past few days have meant for all of us individually, and as a group.

After dinner, we left from el Casar and went for a walk to do some stargazing. 

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AxC 2022: Day 11

Hoy fue el día de...Autogestión! Esto quiere decir que fuimos nosotros y nosotras, participantes de AxC 2022, las y los encargadas/os de proponer y liderar las actividades durante todo el día. Los únicos horarios que se mantenían eran la hora de despertarse, el descanso a mediodía y la piscina. 

Por la mañana, nuestro compañero Jorge lideró un energizer de bachata. Después de desayunar, dedicamos la mañana a trabajar en nuestros proyectos sociales en grupos. También hicimos una actividad de dar direcciones con los ojos vendados para trabajar la confianza entre los y las participantes. 

Después de comer y del descanso de la tarde, hicimos una actividad parecida a la del Privilege walk que hicimos el tercer día, pero esta vez en círculo. En este caso, las afirmaciones eran sobre el nivel de conocimiento y trabajo personal. Luego hicimos un Trivial con globos de agua como “castigo” a los equipos que no acertasen las preguntas. Sin embargo, únicamente conseguimos hacer 3 preguntas porque la actividad se convirtió rápidamente en una batalla de agua!

Por la noche hicimos varias actividades con nuestros grupos de amigos y amigas por separado.

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AxC 2022: Day 10

Yesterday morning, we started out with zumba as the energizer: it boosted our energy and made us feel active for the rest of the day.

After breakfast, we had a public speaking exercise. We were each told to speak for one minute only about any topic and then we came up with a series of ´public speaking tips´, for example, “Be passionate” and “Interact with the audience.” We found this exercise useful because it helped us in articulating our ideas well.

After this, we had a public speaker,´Pablo Santaeufemia ´, come in and talk to us about his business ´Bridge for billions´ and explained the gaps in our entrepreneurship ecosystems why they are not inclusive or equitable. He also considered the two types of businesses as a good topic to discuss so we divided ourselves in two groups depending on our mindsets: while some believed in “for profit” businesses as the best model, others preferred the “non-profit” businesses. We had a very intense discussion where we questioned our thoughts several times and played a game with water ballons to exemplify this dichotomy. It was a lot of fun!! We finished with a business model for our project ideas and with several inspirational and motivating examples of businesses.

In the afternoon, we played a very interesting game called “The game of cities”. We were divided into six groups and were given a space and a few resources. With these materials, we had to build a sustainable city. Groups A and B were given more resources and money and were treated better by the international institutions such as the Bank or the Police Patrol, whilst groups E and F were treated harshly and were given very little resources in comparison. Some groups also experienced “natural catastrophes “ that destroyed their cities. We found out about these great inequalities at the end of the game only, when we were gathered together to reflect on the game. At the start of our discussion, there were many accusations of “corruption” from the people in the disadvantaged groups, because they felt that the other groups were treated much better. We also gathered that the exercise was a metaphor for the inequalities that take place in the real global market economy. The bank´s hesitancy to give loans to those countries was an example of the obstacles that less developed countries face.

In the evening we had a pool party!! We had some virgin mojitos, danced with each other and played some games. We also managed to throw all facilitators in the water!

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prototyping and debating: day 9 at AxC 2022

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AxC 2022: Day 9

Yesterday we reflected a lot on our communication skills. We started out by doing a Hassle line, where we were supposed to imagine that we were at a protest, and on two different sides. The topic that we were given to discuss was abortion. Then we shifted and everyone had to try to be either pro-life or pro-choice. When we were given the assignment, it was already very clear that some people had their own opinion, almost to the point where they could not pretend to support the opposite, for the sake of the assignment. Afterwards we all sat down and reflected over what we thought and felt about the communication, the exercise and the topic. The topic was handled very respectfully, and we had a good talk. 

Afterwards we went directly on to have a formal debate, with practice in listening and research when it comes to arguing. This time the topic of the debate was immigration and welcoming refugees. 

The biggest difference between the two exercises was the way we created our arguments: at the demonstration there was just someone standing yelling in your face, with no intention of changing their own opinion, where in a debate you are forced to base arguments on research and listen to your opponent.

Then we learned about the UN 17 Sustainable Development Goals through a Trivia. Finally, we created collages in teams using recycled newspapers and magazines. The goal of this activity was to identify the challenges that we face today and prevent us from achieving those SDGs, and how to improve them. 

In the evening some of us played ultimate frisbee while others learned how to dance flamenco.

It was really fun to do, and it was a good day ( :

Atlanta Koplev

Denmark

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Day 8 in a nutshell!

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AxC 2022: Day 8

Ayer en Action x Change vivimos un día diferente. Tras días de trabajo, nos tomamos un pequeño descanso para recargar pilas. Empezamos la mañana con una sesión intensa de yoga de mano de Faima para estar activos el resto del día.

A las diez nos fuimos a Toledo, donde además de visitar la ciudad, estuvimos recaudando información para nuestros proyectos sociales. Cada grupo estuvo preguntando a la gente y algunos hicieron experimentos sociales.

Para mí, lo más divertido fue hacer el flash mob, que consistía en bailar todos en la plaza haciendo que no nos conocíamos, con el objetivo de que la gente que pasaba por allí se uniese a nosotros.  Todos disfrutamos mucho e hicimos disfrutar a los que se unieron.

Me gustó mucho ir a Toledo, de allí lo que más me impresionó fue la catedral y el Alcáza, si bien toda la ciudad me pareció realmente bonita.

A las cinco llegamos al Casar, donde tuvimos el resto de tarde libre. Unos decidieron hacer deporte, unos pocos echarse la siesta y otros, como yo, decidimos ir a la piscina.

Para terminar con buen pie el día, por la noche tuvimos una dinámica gymkana, en la cual no se valoraba la rapidez ni la eficacia en hacer las diferentes pruebas, sino el trabajo en equipo. Finalmente el equipo ganador fue el rosa, quienes pudieron decidir qué color deberíamos llevar el día siguiente.

En mi opinión, ayer fue uno de los mejores días del campamento. Todos necesitábamos un descanso y nos vino genial para volver a estar al 100%.

- Cristina S.

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Guest speakers - day 7

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AxC 2022: Day 7

We started the morning with our usual blast of music followed by a energizing session of Zumba.

After making the problem tree for our social project, we received the third guest speaker, the world renowned medical researcher, Quique Bassat.

He showed us the impact that small actions and ideas can change the world, as well as the importance of healthcare. 

We then got another guest speaker: Lorena Silvestri. She talked to us about the different business Canvas models and how to adapt them to our social projects.

We finished the day with a free night. Some of us played soccer, while others chilled at the plaza of el Casar. 

What a fun and interesting day!

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Day 6 - working on our projects

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AxC 2022: Day 6

The day started with us being led by another participant guiding us through the discipline of Taekwondo. It was a lot of fun but at the same time very challenging as most of the kicks were difficult to emulate. 

After breakfast, we were given 10 statements that we had to decide if they were true or false. We thought that many of the statements were true but the reality was worse than we thought, the statistics were actually higher.

After that, we needed a mental break to relieve stress so we played the chairs game where everyone was given a fruit name and when your fruit was called you had to find a place to sit down that is different from yours and one person would be left standing in the middle. Then we made our own groups to play…Trivial! 

In the same groups we started coming up with ideas for our social projects; making posters, having informed conversations, and presenting to the other groups. After lunch, during free time, we used our phones to call parents and friends but a certain participant (Irene) dropped her phone in the toilet on the first day so she couldn´t (it was supposed to be waterproof but we found out it wasn´t when it couldn´t be revived). R.I.P Irene´s phone. We tried to put up the tennis and volleyball net but gave up so someone else put it up for us when we were off in the pool. There, we played Frisbee, passed a mini-football, played chicken, and taught others how to dive in. We discovered how easy it is to lose the Frisbee to the outside world.

Later that evening, we made more permanent choices about which social project groups we wanted to be in, started researching statistics and facts, and shared our ideas and thoughts, bonding over shared experiences and values. To reflect, we went to join our umbrella groups and shared our highs and lows of the past few days, things that shocked and challenged us. After dinner, we learned about each other´s different cultural dances and recreated them with the whole group. At the end we were soooooo tired we went straight to bed. 

We are all having such a great time getting to know everyone, sharing stories, having informed conversations and debates, and spending time in the pool and playing basketball.

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AxC 2022 - Day 5

Hi everyone!

I am writing about the 4th of July - also American Independence Day. Although we did not specifically celebrate this in the camp, we did get the usual blast of music in the morning to wake everyone up from a well deserved night of sleep. The energizer in the morning – before breakfast – was separated in two groups: for some, the morning began with a 10 minute run outside of the Casar, a first view of the outside world since the camp began; whilst the rest was cleaning up the area of the activities with Taylor Swift, One Direction, and Harry styles music!

In the morning, we started with a fun game to show us about the importance of responsibility, followed by an activity to explore the varying degrees of importance of social services. We closed the morning by connecting with our ancestors through an immersive meditation that ´´brought us back to the future´´. In the afternoon, we received our first guest of the camp, the ex-UWC student Sara Pancero - who taught us about design thinking and its wonders.

That night we celebrated the eleventh edition of Furor, and finally, Javi and Luis made their biggest hit… Tongo!

Today was a great success!

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Introduction to the Changemaker process

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AxC 2022: Day 4

Buenas tardes a todos y todas,

Ayer fue un día intenso en el que hicimos muchas cosas interesantes y nos hicieron reflexionar sobre temas que gran parte de nosotros no nos habíamos planteado.

Empezamos el día jugando al pañuelo, con una dificultad añadida: todos teníamos los ojos vendados. Al principio, los facilitadores (Leire, Luis y Marc) sólo llamaban de uno en uno, sin embargo, a medida que iba pasando el tiempo, fueron dos los números elegidos, y en la ronda final, fuimos todos los participantes a buscar el pañuelo.

Lo primero que hicimos después de desayunar, fue recibir una clase sobre lo necesario que es conocer los distintos elementos de una comunidad. Esta sesión fue dada por la facilitadora Marharita.

Al concluir con la obtención de los conocimientos necesarios sobre los distintos elementos de una comunidad, llegó la hora de dividirnos en grupos para crear la nuestra. Tuvimos que pensar qué edificios y espacios públicos poner, qué trabajadores estarían en dichos lugares públicos, dónde vivirían las personas…también ideamos los defectos, necesidades y recursos que poseían nuestras comunidades. Al acabar todos los preparativos, nos pusimos a dibujarlas. Por último, explicamos nuestras comunidades al resto del grupo.

La última actividad de la mañana fue un juego en el cual escribíamos dos nombres del grupo al azar y teníamos que colocarnos entre esas dos personas. Más tarde, tuvimos que formar triángulos cambiando nuestras posiciones en el espacio.

Después del tiempo libre, nos explicaron los distintos niveles de un iceberg, desde lo más visible, que es el evento hasta lo más oculto que es la ideología.

Al fin de esta explicación, nos dividimos de nuevo en grupos para crear nuestros propios proyectos sociales para ayudar a Ordino, localidad que tenía un problema con los cuidadores de personas que sufrían depresión y ansiedad, en su mayoría mujeres.

Para la actividad nocturna, jugamos al “Atrapa la bandera”, que se trata de un juego en el que hay dos equipos, cada uno tiene una bandera que debe esconder, así que, la misión del equipo rival es encontrar la bandera y llevarla a su campo sin que los pillen. Cuando te han pillado, vas a la cárcel, dónde tienes que permanecer hasta el fin del juego, a no ser que tu compañero te salve tocando tu mano.

Después de este juego, nos fuimos a dormir ¡Otro día intenso y divertido en AxC!

Escrito por Paula Ahumada