The FAS ends the academic year with an event focused on values and solidarity
The UAB's Fundació Autònoma Solidària (FAS) went over the highlights of the 2022/23 academic year with an institutional event held on Thursday 1 June at the Rectorat building, in which its volunteer students took centre stage. The event was also held in acknowledgement of all those contributing to making the foundation's tasks possible.
Rector Lafuente: "The FAS's actions have a very positive impact on the people who participate and especially on our students".
The presentation of the event, which took place in the conference hall of the Rectorat building on Thursday 1 June, was given by Àlex Figueruelo, a journalism student at the UAB. The director of the FAS, Jordi Prat, thanked students, organisations, teaching staff and the governing team for their support because "you all make the FAS possible". In addition to being a moment for recognition and gratitude, the director also wanted to highlight that the event intended to reflect on the social and solidarity work of the UAB. He also highlighted the great "professionalism and commitment" of the twenty or so people who make up the FAS technical team.
The presenter then invited attendees to play a game using the Kahoot! application, in order to discover some of the most relevant data of this academic year of the FAS. The players had to answer questions about the number of people benefiting from the work of the FAS, the ApS national congress and the Multakana programme.
Although the activities have not yet ended in this 2022/23 academic year, more than 2,300 people have already benefited from FAS activities (PIUNE, Croma 2.0, UAB Impuls, etc.); 300 students have volunteered; and more than 4,000 people have participated in training or awareness-raising activities on issues such as asylum, migration, human rights, global justice, the environment and health.
Algunes d’aquestes dades es van mostrar en l’acte en un audiovisual que presentava el resum de l’impacte de les activitats del darrer curs.
Some of these data were shown at the event in an audiovisual presentation summarising the impact of the activities of this past academic year.
This was followed by a round table on "Competent volunteering", where people who have been involved in volunteering programmes explained how social work has helped them to enter the labour market. Speakers included Daniel Arnau (Education technician at Rubí Town Council, who studied Psychology at the UAB); Pau Berbel (project coordinator at the Spanish Association against Cancer, who studied Law and Psychology at the UAB); Yousra El Gdari, (activities technician at the Bayt al-Thaqafa Foundation, who studied Sociology at the UAB); Iris Kucinic (5th year Medicine student, doing an extracurricular internship in the FAS Health programme) and Abril Pericàs (4th year Anthropology student, currently volunteering with the FAS in the mentoring programme with a high school girl). The round table was moderated by Júlia Betrian, former FAS employee, current member of the FAS Advisory Council and project manager at the Filmoteca de Catalunya.
Rector Lafuente closed the ceremony by thanking FAS staff and volunteers who participate: "thanks to their effort, enthusiasm and dedication, year after year FAS provides programmes of high social value of which we are proud". The work of the FAS, according to the rector, contributes positively to achieving a better and fairer society. For Javier Lafuente, "the public university, as we understand it at the UAB, must have a clear vocation to serve the community and its surroundings and a firm commitment to the progress of society".
Més enllà del benefici social dels programes que promou i gestiona la FAS, l’acció de la Fundació “repercuteix molt positivament en les persones que hi participen i especialment en els estudiants. Som molt conscients que una universitat que es reivindica com a motor de transformació social ha de formar ciutadans crítics i compromesos amb la societat”.
Beyond the social benefit of the programmes promoted and managed by the FAS, its actions "have a very positive impact on the people who participate and especially on the students", explained Rector Lafuente. He went on to add: "We are well aware that a university that claims to be a driving force for social transformation must prepare critical citizens who are committed to society".