The Summer Camp Weekend 2019
In the first weekend of September, we gathered together for our traditional Summer Camp weekend with a lot of our Catapistas to discuss about our organization and to spend a great time together! Despite the rain, we camped in tents outdoors, we managed a great BBQ and we even finished Saturday night with a lesson on Irish traditional dancing.
We started Friday evening with a very interesting presentation about a research on the ICT supply chain of metals from Bolivia. The research was conducted by Catapistas Alberto and Silke, who travelled to Bolivia to find, first-hand, the ICT supply chain of metals starting from the origins: the mines. They shared some of their discoveries and experiences with us and they are working on a report about it.
Saturday was full of great activities. We started the morning with a traditional indigenous ritual! The ritual was shown to Charlotte during the “Intercambio” in Iquitos, Peru, where everyone could share what they are thankful for and try a traditional drink called “Masato”. Charlotte was able to make us feel part of this event through this great ritual. After this great exercise, she was very happy to share with the rest about the experience in Peru. During the “Intercambio”, two representatives of each of our partner organizations in Latin America, together with Charlotte and our GECOs, met in Peru to exchange their experiences and the realities about mining in their countries.
After a great lunch outdoors (because we were lucky to get some sunshine!) we all sat together for another brainstorm about the future of CATAPA as a socio-cultural organization. We discussed about the Mission and Vision and other future activities. This proposal is getting ready to be presented towards the end of the year.
To end the day we had time to relax with a great BBQ which ended with an improvised Irish dance class from Catapista Emily!
On Sunday, after a very nice breakfast, we started with a great presentation about one of our projects, Fair ICT Flanders. We discussed about the following action and activities that our Catapistas can support within this project.
To finish up, we had a workshop about volunteer management. Since CATAPA is a volunteer organization, we discussed the different roles volunteers have, how to support them, how to get more volunteers and how to keep them motivated and engaged as a Catapista. We had a brainstorm exercise about improvements and new initiatives that we could bring to our organization. This session will be continued during future events since for us it is very important to gather quality input from our volunteers to keep improving the management of the very essence of CATAPA!
The Summer Camp weekend ended with a lunch all together and a lot of ideas and thoughts for the next meetings. For sure we are all waiting for the next gathering… the Changemakers Weekend!!
