Dear Catapistas,
After the summer break we are back on track, feeling more enthusiast than ever and looking forward to seeing what the upcoming year will bring. And this time it comes with some breaking news!
Let me introduce you CATAPA in de kijker, the first edition of a series of updates on our movement, partners, activities, and most importantly, our awesome volunteers. We will try to bring this news fresh to your doorstep – or Facebook wall. And what a couple of months have been to begin with!
Last June our selfie-expert office team started with the first team-building activity. Studies show that co-workers who get along well are proven to yield more efficient results. So office productivity will skyrocket from now onwards🚀. Or maybe it won’t, and I have just made this up. But check how happy we look 😀
Beginning of July, some CATAPA representatives joined Make ICT Fair partner People & Planet’s Power Shift training in the UK. Some insightful days of workshops on justice struggle, collective liberation, campaign strategies, creative and non-violent direct action, grassroots organising, building a movement and reactive solidarity were followed by a direct public action on Divestment within their campaign #DivestBarcleys. Fists raised and #BarcleysCleanItUp! coming out of everyone’s mouth put an end to almost a week of energetic and fruitful encounters, which our CATAPA flag proudly witnessed…
During the same period, but on the other side of the world, our GECOs and partners from Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador and Peru gathered for the intercambio, a whole week full of exchanges and learning from each other and each other’s work that ended up with an even more solid and stronger international solidarity network. “Ayllu Masikunapa!”, roughly meaning “we are all one family and we have to take care of each other”, perfectly defines this beautiful experience.
As summer went on, our already traditional Vamos de CATAPAs social gathering was held during the Gentse Feesten in Ghent, to the sound of Peruvian band Los Wemblers de Iquitos. How often does it happen that a band straight from one of the very places where CATAPA works in Latin America brings some latino vibes all the way to Belgium! So we had to celebrate… And celebrate we did💃
And finally September begun. As usual our summer camp took place at the beginning of this month, and Catapistas gathered to discuss different topics. Important to mention a very intimate moment we shared with ourselves, each other and nature, thanks to a guided ritual that brought us back to the intercambio and our partners in Latin America.
Old and new faces came together somewhere in West-Flanders to set the direction of the movement for the upcoming months. And so we riverdanced our way into the new season.
Immediately after the Summer camp, on Monday 9 September, the learning pathway within project Fair ICT Flanders started with the first workshop. Catapa gave a presentation on the impact of the ICT supply chain. Saartje Boutsen (MVO Vlaanderen) taught us how we can create support within an organisation around sustainability. 22 organisations signed present👏! Towards a fair and circular ICT procurement policy in Flanders!
And the new season comes with new Catapistas. Our EVS volunteers Nóra and Laura sadly have to say goodbye to the office team😢. But it won’t be easy to get rid of them since as you all know, once Catapista forever Catapista. And these Catapistas are taking many good memories from this experience with them.
Let’s hope the new ESC volunteers can gather memories as least as good during their time at the office and in the movement. Martina and Daniela arrived a couple of weeks ago and can’t wait to see what this experience will bring!
With our brand new office team we will finish this first CATAPA in de kijker edition. We hope you enjoyed this innovative way of communicating our updates. Thank you for reading and ¡hasta la próxima!