Day 26 - ¡Vamos Cambia!

An empty camera battery, a full photo card, a drained mental energy supply and a full day of practice later, our last day at the school facilities and the third to last day with the participants is drawing to a close.

It’s been a full day dedicated to the event’s of tomorrow: the open day for the public of San Miguel and UWC, and more importantly for the family and friends of the participants. I believe it will be an important day, if not the most important day of the course, as it ties everything we have been doing together, in a way that must be presentable to people that live outside of our little bubble. Because just as Atlantic College, life has felt like a bubble. We have been in three places, mainly: at the facilities, in our house in San Miguel, or at the range with the participants. Luckily we were able to escape for nightly strolls and adventures after all the work was finished once in a while. Go for a coffee, ice scream or some salsa dancing and karaoke in town. If we were willing to sacrifice sleep. But a very important difference for me was that I learned huge amounts about the country I am in, we focussed on what we can do out there and many of the participants will actually go and do it. Create that social change.

I am having very mixed feelings about the end of this project. Again saying goodbye to some of my close friends and people I have spend so many hours with, learned from, stimulated me, and have brought tears to my eyes. I cannot look back on life the past five weeks without a heart filled with gratitude. However, I am also more thrilled than ever for live to go on and move to my next phase in life: university. As I was reflecting during one of our family meetings (both participant and facilitator reflect during these half an hour meetings to discuss the course of the day), I realized that I had been putting off being in the community I am from, with a fear of loosing who I have become the past two years at Atlantic College. The participants will have a challenge too when arriving back home - their mindsets have changed unlike to those of the people around them. To truly put your passion and connection with those in need of improvement into action in an environment that might not support that action is a huge challenge, but I have a lot of faith in them, as long as they really want it. For me, the course has made me less scared to act, act with a critical and reflective mind. Of course I still have to proof this to myself but I am looking forward to it with an open mind. Tomorrow will be an opportunity for the participants to demonstrate their changes and make people understand them, before returning to their home lives. As one of the participants told me, she hoped for her parents to come as they seemed to have lost faith in the existence of people who help others unselfishly. She hopes to bring back this belief to her parents. She definitely brought me this belief.

A lot of powerpoint presentations were prepared, many speeches practiced and a lot of songs sang. With the participants we are performing a poem, that consists of many haikus (a japanese poetic structure of a line with 5 syllables, a middle line of 7 syllables and a line with 5 syllables.) Every language has two of these dedicated to them, and together they form a long poem, with the team of Hope and Passion in our country. Having a lack of access to the entire poem, I will just post the two haikus written in Dutch:

Het scheelt ons wel wat

er gebeurd, medeleven

vind je nu en dan

de capaciteit

het is er, het kan, er is

passie maar passief

(if you’re really curious google translate at your service)

Another participant performs two of her personally written poems, visualized with simple, but very powerful body language. There are some songs, some skits, some wonderful contributions.

There is one song that has stuck in my head since the participants performed it during the auditions, with cool guitars with 8 strings from the area of Veracruz. It’s stuck in my head during the many crazy photos that we took. (During the facilitator photo there were about 30 of the participants with each a camera swarming around us - we felt like celebrities. Undeserved attention). It’s been playing in my head while we went to grab a coffee on the way back. It’s been there while I wrote this blog. And it will be there when I start packing as soon as I have updated my last blog entry. It’s a catchy song, called Bamba (you will recognize it as soon as you hear it). But it’s mainly stuck in my head due to one of the phrases, as they adapted the lyrics to the project.

¡Vamos Cambia! (¡unidos!)

Laura Brouwer - Netherlands (AC '09-'11)

Day 25- Just be 'stupid'

At the end of the third day of the Social Project Development Workshops, most participants have already had the working plans, mission statements, and even presentations about their projects ready. But I can hardly give myself any credit, for I could not help them much beyond giving them a few comments. In fact, in the past three days, I had been feeling a bit awkward—“hypocritical”, even, because none of us had actually done a social project. We are guiding the participants to do something that we only know theoretically.

But I continue to be amazed in conversations with participants about their projects: school permaculture greenhouse, community alphabetization programmes, cultural workshops, micro-finance-related project… There are more than a few big dreams, and the visions of the Mexico and their communities are beautifully exciting.  Every day, in every conversation and every “family” meeting about the projects, I asked them whether they honestly think that they can realize them; some gave me possible difficulties, but the “yes” was invariably the unanimous answer. They seemed to have no doubt at all.

However encouraging this is, to be honest, we must acknowledge the high possibility or (or even, the fact that) at least one among the 40 projects planned would not work out. It scares me: would this enthusiastic, idealistic participant lose faith and become cynical to all ¡IaM! talks about if he fail?

It has been said by some successful people that the most important thing that they had done was to be “stupid enough to think that they could succeed”. To have faith in oneself and the chance one has to make that change in the world is one of the determinants (if not the determinant) of the success of a project.

With their faith and confidence, the participants have renewed my faith, motivation, and even the imperative to hold on to believing—how can we not, when they all unreservedly believe in what we have been telling them? This faith alone has allowed us to be optimistic about the future of Mexico.  

I wish the same would one day happen in my country, among my people—in fact, maybe the world needs an “Age of Stupid”. Of course I don’t mean the Age in the sense of the British movie, where the stupidity is in our ignorance or inaction towards the global crisis, but a generation of people to be “stupid” enough to believe in themselves and the others’ ability to change the world.

We need stupid dreamers. We need stupid, idealistic, strong dreamers who are able to take the blow of possible setbacks and failures and say to themselves: “Just do it”. 

“Shoot for the moon. Even if you miss, you’ll land among the stars.”

Sonia Hoi Ching Cheung (Hong Kong , AC '10-'12) 

Day 24 - Time flies when you’re having fun

It’s as if time is teasing us! The moments when we are bored the most the clock seems not to tick, no matter how many times we look; and those moments that we would desperately like to linger on seem to go by as if the clock’s hands were a high speed train in a hurry. For me the last 4 weeks were definitely most like the latter. I’m still astounded that my last blog entry has come, and I cannot tell you how much my mind resists against clicking on the button “post”. Even though the participants were the ones that were supposed to learn from us (which, in my opinion, worked), I cannot help but notice that I have learned a lot as well.

The first workshop I gave I was incredibly nervous (for both the Spanish and the teaching). Over time, though I gained a lot of confidence and my Spanish improved to a level that I didn’t expect to reach in such a short period of time. I have to admit as well, that I’m beginning to understand, and even feel empathy, for teachers. I’ve only stood before classes of a maximum of 16, and noticed how annoying (even motivated) students can be! I also, for the first time, had to really take responsibility for a group of people when we went into San Miguel for example, and I can tell you, you suddenly see everything from an entirely different perspective!

But me aside, the past three days the participants have been working on their own projects, and I, like my co-facilitator before me, think that the projects they come up with are mostly amazing! You see that they have actually applied things we taught them before. This is very rewarding. It is amazing to see so many projects rising from scratch! It shows me several things, one that there are so many things that need fixing, which is in a sense depressing, but the positive thing is that there are also people who want to do something about it in their own ways, which is amazing to see, and in a sense gives me hope. I do hope that the participants will carry on the good work they’re doing after this week. I’m kinda afraid though that some of them got a little bit over exited in a sense that they want too much. Nevertheless, their ideas are great and for as far as I can see now they’re doing great!

Now I’ll have to finish a blog entry for the very last time.

It is time to say goodbye now!

“Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery but today, today is a gift (that is why they call it the present)”

-Alice Morse Earl-

I’ll enjoy this project for as long as I can! Hope you enjoyed reading my entries.

Hans van Deursen (The Netherlands, UWC AC 10-12)

Day 23 - 2nd Day of Social Project Development Workshops

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate.
Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.
It is our light,
not our darkness that most frightens us.

We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?
Actually, who are you not to be?
You are a child of God.

Your playing small does not serve the world.
There is nothing enlightened about shrinking
so that other people won't feel insecure around you.

We are all meant to shine, as children do.
We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us.
It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone.
And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.


-Marianne Williamson

(alternatively substitute the word God with whatever else is the greatest source of inspiration in your life)



Ingvill Maria Daatland Hekne, Norway (AC 09-11)

Day 22 - Time Flies

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)

Day 21 - ¡Integrando a Mexico! 2011 Conference

Fireworks exploding, bone fires glistening, proud citizens singing.

It is the 1st of August and Switzerland is celebrating. Thinking of home, I long to join my people and commemorate the birth of our confederation in 1291. This urge to rejoice together, the essence of national identity.

Today, the participants of Integrando a Mexico and facilitators attended the 2011 conference held in the Historical Museum of San Miguel de Allende. In the century old building,three young social entrepreneurs shared their love for their communities and presented their social projects, three attempts to change Mexico’s society for the better. Driven by the love of their country but more importantly by the empathy for their people, a writer, a photographer and a student in medicine turned their passion into a mean of social change.
Impressed by the creativity and initiative, we watched in bewilderment as girls living on the streets shared their stories, as elderly people wrote poems of hope to the younger generation, as visually disabled Mexicans were taught photography. Participants and facilitators watched the dream of a student in his second year of medicine provide medical care to more than 70 000 people. Facts and figures were shared but more importantly passion and motivation: the knowledge that it has been done before, that it is possible even at our ages.

Tomorrow, the participants will start planing their own social project, drawing from individual passions which they will have to connect with issues in their home communities. This conference was a perfect introduction and the mostly practical focus of the questions to the speakers demonstrated the readiness of these 42 minds. I would bet brainstorming is already going on. The genuine selflessness and purpose of each example was a reminder of the purpose of this course and a taste of what potential the participants possess. We have now reached the stage where, all the tools having been given, our role will be to support while creativity does its work.
After three weeks of workshops, I have seen the participants develop and evolve. Looking back and hoping that I have given as much as I could, I will now try my best to assist them in the tedious process of reducing their dream to something measurable. Disillusions. Hopefully not.

Roaming the streets, laughing loudly, buying sweets and ice cream. I can’t wait to seem them take responsibilities and become leaders of their own.
But let them always enjoy the occasional silliness.

Catherine Ador (Switzerland/Norway, AC 09-11)