In a year full of uncertainties and a lot of despair, Multipropaz tried to do its bit to build community and school peace. Our year started with a lot of emotion. We had some massive registrations, with the support of the students that accompanied us during 2019. We had great expectations, students’ excitement to be part of each of Multipropaz’s projects was evident and we were convinced that it would be a year full of many meetings, activities and learning. We never imagined what would happen. The quarantine began and extended to a point that led us to feel desperate at certain times when we thought that Multipropaz would not be able to continue accompanying the Multipropósito School students. A tangible physical and emotional accompaniment for them, as well as for those who make Multipropaz possible, was not possible anymore. However, this experience allowed us to learn more and more from the students, who are full of talent and many, many dreams. The gap was big and worrying.
With this scenario, a group of 3 people decided to join forces again and start contacting the students again in June. Alix Valoyes, Jose Luis Angulo and Edwin Gamboa, founders and directors of Multipropaz, decided to encourage the facilitators of Multipropaz, Victor Valencia and Jonathan Yatacué, to call the students who registered at the beginning of the year one by one. The process of communicating with them was complex, but with the help of teacher Alix we obtained updated databases of the students.
This allowed us to feel a little closer to them. We created the group chats and started the virtual workshops, which began in August. During the workshops we worked in alliance with Edumetría to strengthen the life project of children in the tenth and eleventh grades. We continue supporting the traditional projects MultiEcopaz, Semilleros de Paz and Comunicadores de Paz. After 5 months of virtual sessions, finally on Friday, December 18, we were able to have a personal and face-to-face meeting with the students. The objective of this day was to acknowledge the most active, interested and participative students. We met them in small groups of maximum 8 people, and thanks to the support of the Multipropósito School Coordinator Juan Angel Romero - who has always supported and feels like another member of Multipropaz - we were able to have the facilities of the school.
Returning to the school for both the students and Multipropaz members was magical. Seeing our billboards, our messages, our essence embodied in the walls of the school reminded us that it has been worth all the effort to launch the adventure of building peace from the virtual. In this meeting, we had the support of a person who has dedicated part of his life to Multipropaz. She is Dayana Mosquera, who along with Jose Luis Angulo (Founder-active member) and Victor Valencia, we received the children and some parents, who reflected their appreciation and commitment to continue with this community and school process of building collective peace from ecological, communication, audiovisual and thinking life projects full of resilience and love for their environment.
Victor Valencia, Alix Valoyes