Let´s get it started!
Today, Sunday 11th of December 2011, our highly awaited project has started. In order to take the best out of it, we must work as a team and stick together. The best way for starting is, of course, through ice-breaking-games.
AEGEE-Las Palmas chose for that the Plaza de Santo Domingo in Vegueta, the old-quarter of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria. That was indeed the best place for the participants to start falling in love with our city.
Young people coming from Armenia, Latvia and Greece, together with the organizing team, from Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, made a circle and used the symbol of the event, an orange, to throw it to each other as a way to start memorizing names.
Once the orange ended up squeezed, the game changed. This time it was about each and every one telling their names and doing a movement simultaneously the others were supposed to repeat. It was a good technique to make a relationship between names and faces and to let the roots grow.
The third game was the following: two people held a blanket and by every side of it there was one person. Once the blanket was let down, the people staying by the sides could see each other´s faces and had to tell the other´s name as fast as possible.
Another one: three lines. The participants had to put oneselves forming a line following some rules: alphabetically, according to their initials, size- and age-wise, etc.
And the afternoon went on with such games and dynamics to get off on the right foot.
Once the games were over, the group went back to the hostel and the presentation of the project took place. There was an introduction about AEGEE-Las Palmas´ objectives, future projects, activities... One of the organizers read the description of the project, the same one which was handed in to the National Agency, in order to make sure the participants knew which kind of collaboration is expected from them. Some videos on volunteering were played. One member of AEGEE-Las Palmas talked about her experiences on volunteering, another one played the timple, the most typical instrument from the Canary Islands, more videos were played and the participants got their welcome-pack (reusable farbic bag thanks to Binter Canarias, stickers both with the logo of the project and with AEGEE-Las Palmas logo, a map of the city, a programme of the event and a bag, a bum bag and a cap given by the Gobierno de Canarias. Almost in the end of the evening another member of AEGEE-Las Palmas, a dancer, took all her dancing team to do a performance. And lastly, the participants got their t-shirts.
Right after the opening, which was a big success and a great example of what team work is, the group of participants had some free time to rest after the long trip. They day ended with an enjoyable dinner which allowed them to keep on getting to know each other.
AEGEE-Las Palmas team´s faces shone with joy and enthusiasm. The idea which had been discussed so many times was then finally coming to fruition. In the end, something was starting to sprout from the seeds.
And this is just the beginning...
Héctor Oliva Bolaños - AEGEE-Las Palmas
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