The Vida program creates a space for youth leadership
Within the University of Azuay, the “Vida” wellness and personal development program has formulated spaces for personal development for the university community, focusing on teamwork, self-esteem and motivation.
Based on this experience, the University has decided to prioritize the values and sense of leadership of young people. From there the School of Leadership and Youth Empowerment was born.
This project takes place in May of this year with the aim of being a space to acquire leadership skills, social awareness and a better humanity, which despite its utopian connotation is necessary to raise.
Xavier Muñoz, teacher and member of the Vida program coordination, delves into the subject: “Young people have an important capacity for altruism that is necessary in our society. Within the School of Leadership we seek to provide the tools to cultivate it.
There are four training axes:
The first is about personal development. This aims at self-knowledge, since the individual who wants to undertake must know their strengths and weaknesses.
As a second axis is social and civic awareness, which starts from appreciating otherness and empathizing with the complex situations of precariousness that are experienced locally and globally.
As the third axis are human rights and equality, which focus on social values and human conscience.
And it ends with the axis of intervention and social action, which is synthesized in the practice of the tools previously provided.
Among the greatest challenges of this space is generating motivation for the young attendees with the condition of virtuality.
“Programs such as Mentimeter were used to interact with the boys, as well as meeting groups where they could interact under the dynamics of inclusion. This in order to not only give theoretical talks, but also a discussion for collective knowledge ”, says Xavier Muñoz.
This space managed by teachers from the Faculty of Law and Philosophy, in addition to University Pastoral, has scheduled a second stage, where participants can be in contact with needy populations and their environment.
Muñoz adds: "We want the 35 participants to be facilitators and managers with the mission of accompanying other university students, in other words, we seek a multiplier effect."
UDA Correspondent
