FLY 2022 - European Volunteering Program
On the weekend of March 25-27, 10 students from 3 campus (Porto, Braga and Lisboa) of the UCP headed to Madrid to participate in a training session of Project Fly 2022, a University Volunteering Program in Europe with exchange and learning experiences in the field. This program aims to increasingly strengthen the commitment of partner universities to sustainable development and contribute to the awareness of university communities to the problems arising from inequality and injustice.
These students will carry out their volunteer projects in July and August in Spain, Italy, Bosnia, Kenya, and Slovakia through activities with migrants, people at risk of exclusion, and communities and people in vulnerable situations.
In the words of one of the participants, Rita Reis from the Master in Tax Law in Porto: "This training was very important, allowing us to learn to manage conflicts in the best way, to listen to the ideas of others, as well as to expose our own ideas and, above all, to 'put ourselves in the shoes of others'. All this mixed with interesting, fun dynamics and excellent speakers who gave us excellent perspectives on how to face reality in the society in which we live."
In the words of another volunteer, Beatriz Costa, from the Political Science and International Relations degree program in Lisbon: "This weekend served not only to have a deeper insight into what will be the great adventure of my life so far, but also to meet so many people with different contexts from mine, but who have exactly the same purpose: helping others without receiving anything in return."
The FLY project is coordinated by the Jesuit Universities of Spain: Comillas (Madrid), Deusto (Bilbao) and ESADE (Barcelona) to which have joined the Universities Loyola (Andalusia), LUMSA (Rome, Italy), Mateja Bela (Banská Bystrica, Slovakia) and the Universidade Católica Portuguesa. Each university involved presented volunteering and/or service-learning projects in their home country, with the possibility of receiving students from other partner universities.