#lo6

I also did these woodcrafts for International Women’s Day. The objective of creating these cubes of gender equality was to learn from women who stood out in the fields such as mathematics, natural sciences, humanities and human rights. Areas which were dominated by males in the past and where these women excelled with discoveries such as Radio (Marie Curie) or Malala who won the Nobel Peace Prize when she was only seventeen years old.

Some of the women that I learnt of were Clara Campoamor (thanks to her Spain introduced the women's suffrage) , Pilar Careaga y Basabe (first mayor of Bilbao, politician and engineer), Mileva Marie (Einstein's not-so-known wife, the only female who studied Mathematics in her university) , Jean Baret (the first women who went around the world sailing even though she did it dressed as a man), Ada Lovelace (first programmer in history, her studies were crucial for the computer’s invention) and Alaska Packard (first FBI female agent) between a long list of notable women.

The informative papers talked about many women who broke the barriers of their time and one I found really interesting was Fátima Al-Fihri, the woman who funded the first university of the world in 859. However, I received a kit with three cubes which I built and painted with my sister of females I knew before: Amelia Earthart, famous for her flight marks and for attempting the world’s first air travel over the equator; Marie Curie, first female winner a science Nobel Prize and the only one with two Nobel Prizes and Malala, at the youngest activist to win a Nobel.

The building was more difficult than I expected as the pieces weren’t really regular. and I had to deal with the pieces not joining together for a long time. Moreover, I accidentally injured myself several times because when I removed the dry glue from my fingers, I ripped small parts of my skin and had to wear bandages for two days. Despite that, I like how the gender equality quotes turned out when we finished painting them.

October 10 is known as World Mental Health Day. Last Saturday I spent the day with a friend of mine whose mother happens to be a psychologist, this is why I remembered what date it was. The objective of this day is to raise awareness of mental health issues all over the world, something important in the days we are living in, where the influence of technology gets both the best and the worst of some of us. As a person that knows people who have experienced mental health issues, I feel that it is necessary to learn about mental illnesses. Tv shows and movies have distorted the vision of this kind of illness and some people even believe they don’t exist! That has a very negative impact on those who experience mental health issues, since they start to believe that their problems do not matter.

This is why I decided to do this poster. My initial plan was to draw the Earth and write the letters around it, but I finally decided to do a lettering poster. I have always wanted to do this kind of artwork and wondered if it would look as good as the Pinterest posts I usually see to get inspired. This was the perfect excuse. The poster has a rounded form because I wanted it to resemble our planet, since this is a globally known date. Firstly I did a brief sketch of the letters, asking myself how they would fit in the circumference. I changed some capital letters to lowercase letters, knowing that they would fit better in some cases such as the ‘a’ on ‘day’ and ‘mental’.

On the other hand I drew a couple of decorations around the letters. The hollow of the letter ‘a’ in ‘mental’ and ‘health’ are a brain and a heart. Everything starts in our heads and wellness is achieved with the love and support of those around us. The hollow on the ‘D’ of ‘Day’ is a 10/10, the day we are talking about. Between the letters ‘L’ and ‘T’ in ‘Health’ I drew a green ribbon, which symbolises mental health and I also did a bandage between the ‘N’ and ‘T’. My intention was to express that even though you can't physically see the damage, it doesn’t mean that the problem is nonexistent. Moreover, I drew sunflowers (symbol of joy), a sun and leaves, trying to say that we thrive and grow ourselves—just like plants. At first I wanted to leave the ‘D’ of ‘World’ in green, resembling a plant, but then I realised that it can be confusing so I added the ‘D’ and changed the distribution. (I'm still going to post both versions).

I chose orange for the letters because I was told that orange has the energy and strong emotions of the red and the happiness evoked by yellow. I also researched if this information was truthful or not, and learned that this colour is also known for stimulating mental activity. The background is light blue, which is associated with health, healing and stability. This poster also has green, —colour of growth and safety and yellow tones.

It may look simple but I spent all afternoon doing this and the process gave me a headache. There was one moment where my heart skipped a beat because my tablet was about to turn off, and I didn’t remember if I had saved the project. Luckily, I had. Despite the headache and neck pain, I am very satisfied with the final results. I posted both artworks on my Pinterest and I hope more people remember October the 10th for next year.

Here are the results and the speed process:

A week ago I received a box that contained kits destined to the creation of three different animal shelters. The aim of this distance volunteering was creating safe places for three different species. In first place we have the european hedgehog. Along with my little sister, we created a small house that the FDI Foundation will be placed in a safe environment to shelter the animal. They have been portrayed in many books, like in The Hare and the Hedgehog, by Grimm Brothers and in Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland as croquet balls.

On the other hand we did a mouse-eared bat, another mammal that has influenced cultures. They are different interpretations of them: in some cultures bats seem to be related to darkness and death, whereas in others they are associated with happiness and good fortune. To be honest, when I was told that there was a kit for a bat house I wasn’t very excited about it—since I always had this negative perception of them, but this was actually the most fun to build! This doesn’t mean I didn’t struggle trying to keep the wood pieces aligned. And finally we did a bird nest, which was destined to give to the great tit. I also did some research about them. This little yellow, white and black bird has 40 songs. Something interesting is that they are very willing to use bird-feeders and wood nests such as the one we made.

The informative poster explained that all species above have a uniform distribution throughout the European territory, especially in the Iberian Peninsula, whose forests provide the ideal place for their growth due to the presence of a wide variety of species for their feeding, large wooded / rocky areas for their refuge and the temperate climate that make them adapt to the environment. However, the fires—both intentional and natural, as well as the clearing of the Mediterranean forest have caused these species to lose much of their natural habitat, becoming all of them species of risk.

While doing this activity I couldn’t stop thinking about how cutting trees does not only harm species around them, but also the whole ecosystem. I’m not particularly known for being a handyman and I was a big scared I would mess things up, but I had a lot of fun during the building process. What I liked the most was knowing that by doing this I was helping to protect biodiversity and therefore the environment. It doesn’t matter whether there’s a cultural impact, a negative perception or if the bird has a nice song or not, all species should be protected. After all, they all carry out functions to make the Earth the place it is.

Last week a student of 2nd IB proposed us to engage in this service activity. The idea was to write a Christmas letter to elders from the nursing home ‘Hermanitas de los pobres’ in Los Molinos, but then we decided to do this in pairs, one would do a drawing and the other would write the letter.

We were handed a list with the names and ages of the residents and we were assigned a person to write. At the end I worked with Bruno and we sent our letter and drawing to a lady named Isabel. He told me that he was more comfortable writing the letter than drawing in this situation, so I ended up drawing a Christmas card. I didn’t mind whether to write or draw, so I adjusted to my partner’s preferences. I wanted to participate in this activity because I think that everybody deserves a Christmas greeting, especially knowing how this year has been. Elders usually feel very alone when they aren not able to see their families or live in nursing homes and gestures like this are really appreciated by them.

I drew six different snowmen surrounded by snowflakes and wrote ‘Merry Christmas’ in Spanish with artistic handwriting. At the beginning I didn’t know what to draw since I usually do posters or edit with a tablet, and so I looked for inspiration on the internet. Despite that, I am really happy with the result of both my drawing and my partner’s letter and I hope Isabel likes our card.

Today, December 12, Vega and I along with our peer Ana Sofía from school participated in the Red Cross Christmas Campaign where we collected toys. We spent 4h standing in the three different places where we could inform and collect the toys from the Carrefour customers. I was particularly excited about this activity since I find service activities very enriching and I feel sympathetic to this campaign as I believe that it’s only fair that every kid can enjoy Christmas and have toys to play with as having fun and playing plays a crucial role in everybody's childhood and the personal development of children, and so I wanted to engage with it.

I found out that customers were more receptive as the hours went by and that families with children stopped to listen to the information we were transmitting than people who were alone and only went there to pick a couple of things. In addition, elder people were more sympathetic with the campaign and were eager to bring toys to our posts.

Vega and I changed places with the other volunteers around every hour but we spent most of the time informing customers both outside and inside the supermarket. I particularly liked being able to see how the carts and boxes were filling themselves as time passed by. We filled up to 2 big square-shaped boxes and two other carts! The square-shaped boxes were bigger than the carts, and thus I would expect that we filled around 6 carts. At the end of our shift (14h) our legs were sore from having been standing but despite that, this has probably been one of the most enriching and enjoyable experiences of the service activities I have done the past year.

Ever since I built animal shelters last year I wanted to repeat the activity, so when the opportunity came up, I decided to sign up for this distance volunteering that consisted of building bird feeders/houses, since small bird species need all the nourishment they can get, especially in cold weathers. It was tricky, as some of the wooden pieces were uneven and the instructions had been lost in the mail, but my friends and I were able to make the houses in the end!

Along with Vega, Álvaro, Juan, Hans and me, we built 5 bird feeders / houses. We had to get creative as we didn’t have the instructions, but I believe we did a great job with the building. For the construction of these houses we had to sand, glue and assemble all the pieces we had. I was glad that we had more of a pair of hands available because the glue took a long to dry and with the help of the rest of my peers the process of holding the sustainers that connected the roof and the floor. The most challenging thing was to figure out how the pieces matched and had to be assembled. As expected, my fingers got sticky due to the silicone glue and I almost nailed a splinter a couple of times. Despite this, I really enjoyed spending time with this activity knowing that our assembling would be destined to the preservation of nature.

Along with my peers I collaborated with the breast cancer campaign of this year. I was particularly engaged with this service activity because of my close experience with this disease.

My mum had it when I was young. I want to share a couple of things before getting to the activity: breast cancer is tough, not only for those who experience it but also for the people they love the most. When I was young, I didn’t understand why my mum was sick, but I always tried to cheer her up when she appeared from her radio/chemo sessions. When I grew up, I understood how strong she had been and grew proud of what she had overcome. I always find myself worried when she has an appointment with the oncologist. However, she was lucky enough to fight it and recover whereas many other women haven’t recovered from it. This is the main reason why participating in this activity felt so personal.

Us, the second year IB students were in charge of decorating the urns and used pink and white cardboard along with other decorating which we painted. Furthermore, we created the pink ribbons/bracelets, cutting the laces and adding the bracelet beds to tie them the day of the sale. These wristbands are things that we ought to sell in order to raise money for the Spanish Cancer Association. We raised money over three days: October 19, 20 and 21 and I believe we raised over 400€for at least the first 2 days. It was a very rewarding experience since I worked with other people that were engaged with the activity and it is a cause that I really think is crucial to acknowledge.

[Week of the 17/10/2021]

The week before the start of the new term, Juan, Vega, Bruno, Mireya and I participated in another Red Cross campaign at the Carrefour of Las Rozas. We were in the second shift September the 5th (Sunday), from 14:00h to 18:00h. The name of the campaign was “Vuelta al cole solidaria”, and its aim was to collect school supplies in order for children from Spain to have the necessary sources to attend school.

As we were there from 2 to 6, I expected that there would be less people than there actually were. From 16 to 17 was the time where the market was emptier, however, that didn't discourage us and we kept talking to Carrefour clients and informing and convincing them to collaborate with us by buying anything in the nearest section of school material. As we were 5, we switched from hour to hour, one hour standing and persuading people to help, and the other one receiving the supplies and filling out the shopping carts with pencils, notebooks, pens, backpacks, rubbers and many other items.

I particularly enjoyed watching the carts filling up, but I also liked interacting with the families that entered the supermarket and told us that they would gladly help us. One of the most satisfying moments of this activity was when Vega, Juan and I switched places with Bruno and Mireya and a woman we had talked to came with a bag with pens and notebooks and told us that she admired what we were doing and told us “Bless you!”. There were also families whose kids came to hand the material to us and, so we gave them some of the balloons that were in the cart. I was very glad to have been able to see them smile and my heart was full as many of the people who helped kept thanking us for what we were doing by collaborating with the campaign. We were able to fill four shopping carts, which made us feel proud of our efforts.

With the supplies collected, many kids whose situation isn't as fortunate will be able to attend school prepared even if their families have had economical difficulties. At the end of our shift, all five of us went back in and bought more supplies like glue, scissors, pens and rulers. I enjoyed this activity a lot because I was able to work and interact with other people, help the local community and help with a matter of global significance such as education, which are the reasons why I would like to repeat this kind of voluntary work again. The lack of school material is one of the aspects that makes children who come from families without resources not have access to long-term education, and because of this I was very happy to help with my participation in the camping persuading people and with my own contribution!

[Week of the 05/09/2021]