Serve the City!

What is Serve the City? I hear you say...

Well, a quick trip to Google will tell you more I'm sure but, for the sake of the Blog and to entice you to read the rest of this entry, I shall attempt to explain.

'Serve the City' is basically an organisation that organises and mobilises groups of volunteers to carry out social action or volunteer projects, several times a year in cities around the world. Here in Madrid, 'Serve the City' is still in its early days having only begun in January but today the organisation had around 15 different projects running across this city alone.

At 10:00am, a group of us rolled up to a building hidden away down a street near Sol and were greeted by the gift of a rather fetching red t-shirt and several people working at 'Misiõn Urbana', the Madrid headquarters of where we would be working for the day. Our mission? To help repaint the building's offices and some other rooms which hadn't been done for...well a long time. So we got underway after some lovely group photos in the early morning rain outside; masking taping, painting, packing and preparing the rooms for painting. Despite the small size of the bulding, we still managed to paint four of the five rooms in the building in the day which will enable the organisation to make more use of the offices and enhance the work that they do.

At this point, I feel that I should mention some more about the purpose of doing this. Some of you are probably thinking 'well, of course there is a free t-shirt, free lunch and some good chat involved...but what else?'. Well, 'Mision Urbana' is an organisation that makes an incredible difference in Spain at this precise moment. As well as meeting with those seeking work to help them write CV's, send off applications and search for work, the organisation also helps teach people English to enhance their work prospects, help local children with a place to do their homework, play games and have fun. The work of the organisation continues, but I used those to highlight just how important it is to help support these small organisations that do this type of work, especially in a country completely submerged in an economic crisis.

Starting to become frustrated by the lack of evident support for families walking the streets of Madrid with their belongings in shopping carts and elderly men at Metro stations, a polystyrene McDonald's cup clutched in one hand and asking for money, I felt like it was time to do something to contribute to an organisation that has a better understanding of these situations and better methods of assisting them at this time when the country is en pinta chunga.

So 'Serve the City' was definitely worth taking the time to do, especially having chatted to one woman working at the organisation who explained that, most days, there is a minimum of 40-50 visitors to this one tiny office which is a sure sign that anything to help improve the running of these places. Even running masking tape around one of their doorframes...or painting a wall...or cleaning a window is one small action that in some way translates into helping one small organisation reach out to the entire population of a city.

Whether you're a fellow Year Abroad-er or just reading this because it's popped up on your News Feed, I'd encourage you to check out the Mision Urbana Madrid or Serve the City webpages to see their work and perhaps get involved in the future!