O testemunho da María

Hi! My name is María, I’m 28 and I come from the south of Spain. My ESC project is called Boutique da Cultura and it takes place in Carnide’s neighbourhood.

Boutique da Cultura is a cultural house where lots of projects takes place at the same time: it’s a coworking space for amazing artists, there is a Livraria Solidaria where you can find second hand book at very cheap prices, one Auditorium for theatre plays and music shows, they have music lessons... It is a place that is constantly implementing new projects and ideas related to what the neighborhood need, so it is an exciting place to be part of.

I arrived in September, so I’m still starting getting to know everybody and just helping in anything that they could need me and my colleague Jesús (also from Spain ☺). For example, we helped create the atrezzo for a theatre play that is going to be premiere very soon! (“A Capucha Encarnada”, 15 de Novembro, everybody is welcome!). We also help mantaining the Livraria Solidaria in order and help with the process of creating and updating the catalogue, which is super important in order to see what do we have to offer
for selling, what could be interesting for the community and what have we sold so far.

At the moment I am writing this blog from Braga, a city in the north of Portugal, where my On-arrival Training is taking place. Tomorrow is the last day of the training so I can already tell you that it was the perfect experience in order to put all my feelings and ideas together in order to keep growing within my project. During this 6 days we have been introduced to many topics and resources that are going to be very useful during our ESC project and, in some way, it has been also a great therapy to understand and learn how to deal with all the challenges that we are going to face in a new country.

I feel really grateful to have this opportunity and I am excited to come back to Lisboa and keep giving back all the good energy that I am receiving. Obrigada!