International Co-operation scheme Colombia - Germany
It
all started in January 2000: what was planned as a "visiting-friends-learning
Spanish-holiday" turned out to be the beginning of the only international cooperation
within our project "AIESEC meets EXPO 2000". CONAL 2000 - the Colombian national
conference - happened to take place during the time I intended to spend in Colombia.
Invited by my friends, of course, I joined the conference. These were my first
days on a continent I've never been before and without a doubt it was a very
intensive experience. Besides enjoying all the magic of an AIESEC conference
in South America I presented "AIESEC meets EXPO 2000" to the delegates. In all
our project presentations so far we included a number of possibilities for other
countries to participate. However, little response had been given so far.
Not so this time: The general idea of the project was received very well and
the exchange opportunities were welcomed a lot. Immediately a task force was
set up to work out concrete cooperation possibilities. These new ideas were
also integrated in an already scheduled meeting with the ZERI (Zero Emissions
Research Initiative). As this organisation planned to be represented at EXPO
2000 with an own pavilion they were very open to participate in the AIESEC exchange
program to get young people as guides at their pavilion. With these promising
ideas in mind and a lot of enthusiasm in the heart the work of the task force
in Colombia continued and after my return in February the cooperation was included
in our project plan.
Of course, things didn't go the way they were planned. The cooperation with
ZERI - core part of the project on the Colombian side - turned out to be very
difficult and it was eventually cancelled - at least regarding their participation
at the exchange program. Nevertheless the first CEED (AIESEC member exchange)
was prepared according to the cooperation plan. Lina Maria Echeverri from the
Local Committee Manizales arrived in May and worked mainly on the changed design
of the new cooperation plan, on our preparation conference and on several local
issues of the LC Munich where she stayed for three weeks. The second CEEDer
who worked directly with our project team was Andres Vargas from the Medellin
EAFIT. He arrived in early July and his main tasks were the design and the programming
of the project's web pages and other layout issues.
The adjusted co-operation plan was mainly about the integration of six AIESECers
from Colombia into the project. They got the opportunity to stay in Germany
for two months and worked at the EXPO during the Global Dialogue Fora to cover
these events in terms of content for their counterpart in Colombia. The remaining
time in Germany they spend in German AIESEC Local Committees doing an "AIESEC
meets EXPO 2000"-related CEED. Due to time constraints this worked out only
in four of six cases (in Nuremberg, Lüneburg, Osnabrück and Kassel - thanks
a lotto these Local Committees!!). Altogether Leonardo Galvez, Diana Herrera,
Adriana Villanueva, Ricardo Moreno, Johanna Garcia and Alberto Severino who
came to Germany and some of them also participated in other events of the project.
In addition, three Colombian trainees were matched to traineeships of our project,
thus raising the number of exchanges realised within the cooperation to a total
of eleven.
Much more than the quantity it was the persons themselves that had a significant
impact on the project. Very different working and living habits lead to some
challenges. It was certainly a very intensive cultural experience for the people
involved and a great opportunity to learn from each other. Based on the common
commitment to bring up the issue of Sustainable Development in AIESEC and to
increase society's awareness of this topic, we hope the activities of the project
in Colombia and in Germany are just the start and our initiative will be continued
sustainably.
Tobias Regner
Team "AIESEC meets EXPO 2000"