Last week, wow. We have already put three weeks behind us in the project and I have had more than five weeks in Mexico altogether. And it still just feels like one or two days. During the day, and especially now that I’m writing probably my last blog post on this blog, I feel like the project and my stay is coming to an end. In a way it makes me sad because it’s been such a good time. I’ve made good friends, some of which I probably won’t see in some time. I’ve had amazing food, wonderful cultural experiences, beautiful moments and loads of fun. I’ll definitely miss the openness and happy attitude of the people here, the culture which is so full of life.
But most of all I’ll miss the project. Luckily we still have one week left and quite possibly the most important week. We are primarily running what we call Social Project Development Workshops. In these the participants have to take all the knowledge, creativity and engagement they have gained throughout the course and put it into a social project of their own. In many ways this is the final outcome of the course. The reason we are arranging it is not just for the participants to have fun and get friends, get wiser or even live a happier life afterwards. We are doing it mainly because we want to turn them into social change makers. The project they are creating now they will take back to their communities and hopefully keep on working with, develop, expand or create new projects. As long as they in some way or the other create social change in the societies they’ll be living in in the future.
I’m really impressed by a lot of the ideas that the participants already have. And the fact that all of the people I’m working with all have clear and engaging ideas for projects they want to do. It really makes me believe in humanity to see them embracing the opportunity they have to do good for other people and society around them. And the same should be possible anywhere in the world. The participants are not very different from young people back home. No matter where you go youth are strangely similar: free, full of humour and with a drive to change the world and see things differently, if they are only given the option, the one experience that empowers them. That’s why I like this project so much. It’s basically pure youth-to-youth empowerment. Without any kind of grown up figures telling us what to do and what’s right and wrong, how we should fit into society. Here we are all equals in the way that we all have to learn, explore, understand and figure out things on our own. Of course there is a structure, and some people are facilitators and some are participants. But that is out of practical reasons and the “teaching”-relationship is more of a mutual co-operation build on consent and will to create. Both we and the participants develop and grow together, as a collective as well as individuals.
For myself I’m also trying to develop a social project of solar panels for houses in my local community. It just feels so completely natural as everybody else are developing their ideas and plan how they are going to help their communities. For me this kind of atmosphere is magic. Hundreds of ideas spinning around in people’s heads, near to reach their first step towards realization. It’s the sound of normal youth taking their everyday lives, their communities into their own hands. It’s the sound of change. It’s the sound of a better world.
Thank you a lot, everybody.
Albert Andersen Øydvin (Norway, AC ‘10-12)
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