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En un lugar de La Sagra... - Somewhere in La Sagr..
En un lugar de La Sagra... - Somewhere in La Sagra...
Start date: May 1, 2015,
End date: Sep 30, 2016
PROJECT
FINISHED
Somewhere in La Sagra... (in a place whose name I do not care to remember) is where two European volunteers will live and implement this project. In that very same place of La Sagra (whose name their youngsters inhabitants, sometimes, do not care to remember) is where they will live and share experiences with the local youngsters. Beforehand the place doesn't seem like a very promising land, full of sweetness and kindness; that's maybe why Cervantes wrote his Quixote from here: it was a great challenge to transform the place into an exotic, tempting land full of adventure. And those are the same reasons why this project is born in here: the roughness of the place, the lack of opportunity for its inhabitants... It is exactly here where fostering youth participation is needed. We face the same challenge as Cervantes did: make the place attractive for its neighbors and start fighting back this lack of opportunities and motivation.
At first sight, it is difficult to feel part of such an uninspiring place and nevertheless, once you are able to break out of the routine of “nothing is happening here”, “there is nothing to do here”, “I'll leave as soon as I can” the sight opens and you can start seeing the possibilities, get on with it and start building a new, positive identity for yourself and your place. The objective: have a great time, enjoy thousand adventures and, along the way, transform ourselves and our county. Our previous experiences with EVS in the area have proved the presence of this European youngsters acts like lubricate for this processes. Only with their presence they are able to break this vicious cycle and allows local youngster to start quitting their sensation of “no-present, no-future”. At the same time, the EVS volunteers will experience their own identification and transformation process by being in contact with such difficult, challenging and passionated tasks.
Cervantes wrote Don Quixote in our land 400 years ago; in 2015 we commemorate the first edition of it second part (the first part of the novel was released 10 years earlier in 2005) and we want to honor the writer and his universal character by being contemporary Quixotes right in the land of Don Quixote: fight for good ideas with our daily actions and stand for what is fair and positive for us and our colleagues in our life... just "Somewhere in La Sagra...", in this exact place whose name we do not care to remember sometimes.
The two European volunteers involved in this Long Term EVS Project, as well as their predecessors in the EVS project “Quijotes in La Sagra”, will be facing four monstrous giants for youngsters of our time in La Sagra: “Unmotivation”, “Insatisfaction”, “Individualism” and “Senseofnofuture”. We already know the battle will be uneven but just presenting it will be our big victory. The youngsters of La Sagra, like Cervantes, need some inspiration and models to build their life considering their local environment and the international possibilities they have. Like Don Quixote, they need to be really local to became absolutely global.
The Long Term EVS project “Somewhere in La Sagra...” will take place in the small towns of Borox and Numancia de La Sagra, in where the hosting organization, Proyecto Kieu, has its headquarters. The two volunteers will join the Youth and Social Services in the villages to help with different community, social and cultural activities with the aim to help youngsters to be involved in social participation. With their example of European Volunteers they also inspire local youngsters to know more about international and European options for themselves.
The celebration of this 400 anniversary of Don Quixote is the frame and inspiration for this project: from Cervantes we take his way to transform a non inspiring, common environment into a great masterpiece; from Don Quixote we take his willingness to do good to everyone and from Sancho his pragmatism that help us to create well adjusted activities to our reality. This anniversary will also give us a lot of local and international cultural-communicational activities in where the European Volunteers will participate and the context for them to also be inspired and create their own personal (cultural-social) projects with the community.