Stick a pin in Pam a Pam, build your map of responsible consumption

Nom du partenaire

SETEM Catalunya
INS Montjuïc
Barcelona City Council
Neighborhood organizations/ businesses publicized through the PAM A PAM map

Role:

Autre
Autre
Autre
Autre

Autre:

Project Carrier
Project Carriers
Project Funders
Project beneficiaries

Name of establishment / organisation

SETEM Catalunya / INS Montjuïc (secondary school)

Address

Bisbe Laguarda 4

08001 Barcelona

Spain

Location of project

http://www.setem.org/site/cat/catalunya/

Start date and duration of project

01/11/2014 to 31/10/2015

Level

Middle school

Number of pupils, teachers and staff involved

40 students, 2 teachers, 2 technicians from SETEM (non-profit) and 6 individuals from neighborhood establishments or organizations

Topics

Environment and natural resources, Food, Gender, Global citizenship, The economy

Subject areas

Other, Science

Please specify how the project was carried out

This project was developed as a part of two school subjects. The concept of a Social Economy with Solidarity was taught in Social Sciences, while the design and the execution of the service and the communications plan took place as part of Education for Citizenship.

Teaching and learning objectives

- Make the idea of a Social Economy with Solidarity (Economia Social i Solidària, or ESS) known at the school.
- Give families and teachers options in responsible food, textile and banking entities in their neighborhood.
- Bring the educational community closer to the tasks done by volunteers by making them reflect on the learning factor involved.
- Improve personal skills and abilities by putting them to use for others.

How did the project originate? What needs does it address?

Pam a Pam was created by SETEM Catalunya and Xarxa d’Economia Solidària (Solidarity Economic Network, or XES). It’s a collaborative map showing initiatives for responsible consumers in Catalonia, with the objective of transforming our surroundings through what we buy. With this initiative, SETEM Catalunya aims to design an educational learning project with secondary school students on the concept of a Social Economy with Solidarity and get them involved in building the Pam a Pam map.

Summary

This project wants to make the project of a Social Economy with Solidarity known, while offering families, students and teachers options in responsible food, textile and banking entities in their neighborhood.
Through participative workshops on being responsible consumers and building a Social Economy with Solidarity, we invite students to organize an awareness campaign on these subjects and to collaborate in making the Pam a Pam map.

Learning that has taken place:
In Social Sciences, we worked on educating in the Social Economy with Solidarity (ESS). We organized 10 workshops with videos and participative dynamics in order to teach the 10 criteria of the ESS, which include aspects like ethical finances, gender, proximity, or sustainability. We worked on two criteria at a time in classroom sessions of an hour each.
In Education for Citizenry, we planned the phases of our service. In a later phase, we also worked on a questionnaire of criteria so that students can evaluate their neighborhood organizations and businesses.

Description of the service offered:
Students interview local businesses that promote responsible consumerism and ESS. For example, they ask shopkeepers about different criteria worked on in the previous phase and seeing if they are consistent with an ESS. Those businesses that meet the criteria are uploaded as new initiatives (pins) on the Pam a Pam map.
Students also participated in a neighborhood route that visits the different points detected, which was enjoyed by other students and teachers from their school.

Did your project have a final outcome ?

The students at INS Montjuïc added 4 businesses from their neighborhood to the map. In doing so, they themselves became “orange pins”. You can see their page here.

“Orange pins” are those who look for initiatives that meet ESS criteria in Catalonia’s cities and towns; they’re the ones responsible for conducting interviews and uploading businesses and organizations onto the map to publicize them. You can visit the map by clicking here.

What communications and dissemination strategy was used for the project ?

We’ve spread word of our project through the following means and activities:

- Through the Pam a Pam website and blog: http://pamapam.org/ca and http://pamapam.org/ca/blogs

- Organizing a route for students and teachers to the different points detected.

- Publicity through an online video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d3MveYiHMEY)

What outcomes and changes did the project generate ?

- Students have gotten involved, and together with SETEM, they’ve added 4 new organizations/businesses to the map.
- INS Montjuïc will repeat the project during the 2015-16 school year of their own initiative, with occasional support from SETEM.
- With funding from the Barcelona City Council, SETEM will repeat the project at another secondary school in the city.
- Our youth have reflected on their ability to transform the world as consumers.
- 4 students from INS Montjuïc volunteered to help at the Festa del Comerç Just (Fair Commerce Festival) organized by SETEM.
- 2 students from INS Montjuïc have become SETEM volunteers.

What difficulties did you encounter when implementing your project ?

As ours is a new project, we’ve found several aspects to be improved:
- We could better plan our joint evaluation between the school and our organization and come up with additional elements for evaluation, such as a field journal or activity questionnaire, among others.
- We could modify the calendar in order to begin our project earlier in the year and add a few more workshops, with the objective of working on the 12 Pam a Pam criteria.

What factors made it easier to carry out your project ?

- The content fit well with the themes discussed in the classroom.
- he methodology, highly participative with the students as protagonists, helped to develop the project.
- The methodology of Learning through Service motivates students. They see learning as meaningful when they are able to apply it in the service phase; students have a clear objective.
- A grant allowing our organization to accompany and participate in the project has made teachers’ task easier, as they weren’t familiar with the methodology.

Which factors are most related to global education ?

Our project looks at being a critical consumer as a tool for global transformation, and we propose to our youth that they reflect on how the way we live can impact other parts of the world. We also make them aware of alternatives like fair trade, cooperatives or initiatives for a social economy with solidarity.

How did you assess the project ?

- We evaluated knowledge acquisition with reflection journals that summarized the debate generated in each workshop.
- Teachers and SETEM personnel evaluated the success of our objectives for attitudes through observation, with the aim of evaluating the involvement and participation of students in all activities.
- We evaluated the success of our objectives in service by observing the interviews carried out by students, as well as through post-project evaluation meetings between our organization and the school.

Contact

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