Civic Engagement in Action (2225.YR.014742.1)

General information

Type:	OPT	Curs:	3	Period:	S semester
ECTS Credits:	2 ECTS

Teaching Staff:

Group	Teacher	Department	Language
Year 3	Alex Fernández de Castro Krings	Sección Español	ENG, ESP

No prerequisites.

IMPORTANT INFORM ATION: The opening and closing sessions to the course will be offered in English, but the 50 hours of volunteering work will be carried in SPANISH LANGUAGE, both during the Fall edition and the Spring edition. In Summer, students will be able to carry the 50 hours of volunteering jobs either in English or in Spanish in the Barcelona area or abroad. However, Third year students are not allowed to enroll in the summer edition.

The number of participants in Fall and Spring will be limited to 20. In summer, as many as 40 students will be able to sign up.

Students should be aware that because of the nature of the course which focuses on volunteering in actual organizations, locations and schedules will vary depending on each collaboration. Hence, flexibility and commitment is key. Only the three sessions that will take place at Esade's campus are already scheduled. All opening and closing sections fall on saturday.

Fall 2022, Sept 17th, Oct 1st (opening sessions), January 14th, closing session.
Spring 2023: Jan 14th and 21st, opening sessions, June 10th, closing session
Summer 2023, June 10th and 17th, opening sessions, Sept 16th, closing session

Before the first session of the program, pre-enrolled students will receive volunteer opportunities to participate during the course. With this information, students will indicate their interests, preferences and availability among the available options.

None

After two initial training sessions at Esade (4 hours in total), students will volunteer in the organization or project they have been previously assigned and accepted, with a minimum dedication of 50 hours, depending on the organizations' needs. Students will prepare a final report about their experience before the final scheduled session.

The timetable and total dedication of the volunteer action will depend on the organization's needs and projects. This information will be included in the initial presentation of the volunteering opportunities (session 0).

Students will be asked to prepare some materials (short readings and/or videos) for the training sessions or even specific materials from the NGOs before starting their volunteering. The total time dedication for this homework will be around 2h.

This course gives revolves around volunteering for social organizations. Students will be assigned an NGO for which they will work (in Barcelona or abroad), and they will collaborate for a few weeks with them. On top of that students will receive some training on volunteering and impact, and will share with each other their experiences for shared learning.

The course may allow students to:
- Enhance the level of social commitment of students with sustainability issues (social and/or environmental).
- Understand complex and systemic problems.
- Foster a critical consciousness; investigative and non-conformist attitude.
- Break stereotypes and avoiding prejudices.
- Develop relational and social skills.

Specifically, the main competencies and skills to develop are:
- Foster empathy (sensitivity to the feelings, needs and lives of other people in the world; sense of common humanity, common needs and rights)
- Be able to appreciate/understand diversity.
- Be able to work in a team and collaborate.
- Be able to negotiate and manage conflicts.
- Be able to contribute to organizations assuming corporate citizenship.
- Be able to understand the complexity of the context, in its local and global dimensions.
- Be able to adapt and be flexible.
- Be able to have tenacity, persistence and perseverance.

1. session 1, held during the first week of the course Pre-work training: context. - Presentation of the course: Goals, Expectations and Methodology - Understanding of one's own identity and the diversities that exist within societies and how the lives of others can enrich our own. - First approach to the work of the participating entities - Presentation of the realities of work, causes and problems - Specification of the activity to be carried out and specific training necessary: o profile of beneficiaries o Specific tasks and processes o etc.

2. session 2, held during the second week of the course Pre-work training: attitude - Introduction to voluntary action, Social justice and equity, social commitment, Awareness of prejudices towards diversity. - Social skills, service, empathy, reality analysis

3. session 3: closing session, held after all students have carried their volunteer work After-work group reflection: unequal society Finally, there will be a final common session to present and share learnings and conclusions - Assessment and joint reflection - Learnings from the experience and personal and professional contributions

The three training sessions will be held in the classroom with the entire group. Sessions will be led by the teachers (or even with some invited speakers) and will combine master sessions with debate and group participation. Students might be asked to prepare some materials (some short reading or audio-visual material) to complement the first two sessions. Depending on the specific project or volunteer activity, some additional specific preparation or brief training may be required.

Group	Teacher	Department
Year 3	Alex Fernández de Castro Krings	Sección Español