“Els somriures dels casals” lighten the Moroccan Sahara up

This project, under the name “Els somriures dels casals”, started eight years ago aiming to help those collectives in need and to make the Berber culture visible through empowering children in the rural areas of the Moroccan Sahara. Promoted by Associació Katzima, in 2014 the University of Barcelona joined the project through service-learning approaches from the Faculty of Education in the field of cooperation for international development.

Regarding the impact on the university students, the project aims to create a place for experiences and education to surround the educational, political and intercultural dimension on training involved citizens who are committed to society, with critical and creative thinking when designing proposals, and who are change agents in their closest surroundings.

Every year, a group of twenty-five students from different studies takes part in this project. The students finish their work during the fifteen days they are living with the Moroccan children. The previous work consists on several sessions defining the pedagogical project to be carried out in the work field as well as a weekend to help the participants to get to know each other.

“Els somriures dels casals” is so important that “those kids and their families are waiting for us, and there are teenagers that took part in it for years who now want to study and become teachers”, says M. Antonia Buenaventura, lecturer at the Faculty and coordinator of the project. “For us, -continues Buenaventura- it is very satisfying to see a kid wanting to be a teacher. The objective is for the families to see this importance, and we are getting there”.

With this project, the UB students have the chance to put what they learned in class into practice, and this is one of the things they value the most, without leaving aside the emotional learning, since they believe “this experience turns you into a better person”.

One of the happiest students with this project is Èrica Rodríguez, social worker who is taking part in “Els somriures dels casals” for the third time. Èrica wanted to put into practice the knowledge she gained in the studies, but she became more involved in the project thanks to its emotional side: “It is great to get there and see the kids are waiting for you and remember you”. Since she has taken part in the project more than once, she says each year “you have the chance to improve the strategy depending on what you see that works best”.

Eloi Martínez is a social worker and has been there twice. Like Èrica, he participated in the project to “apply the gained knowledge from the degree to an unknown reality”. He says experience has given him many “tools” to develop this work, and summarizes the project as “a laboratory, a place where to experiment and test new things; which I recommend to people who have never done this kind of things”.

This will be the first year of the project for Eli Bassas and Núria Ambrós. Eli, 2nd-year student of Pedagogy, was interested in taking part in the program to “create the program of this summer school”. Núria, 1st-year student of Pedagogy, says she “always had an interest in helping people”. Both have some fears: about getting used to the food, language, habits…. But they are excited to go there and help.

A documentary on this project receives the first prize in the competition DOCS Cooperants 2017

Motivated to share their experience with the world, some of the participants in this project recorded a documentary to talk about the initiative from their personal perspective. The piece, under the title of the same project, has been awarded the first prize in the DOCS Cooperants 2017 competition, given by Casal de Joves Sagnier in collaboration with the Barcelona City Council. The competition awards the creation of documentaries on cooperation, associations, participation and volunteering. Unlike other contests, it does not award the final result but the best idea or project.

The documentary is available in this link.