09/03/2018

#UICSocialDay: Mission completed!

For yet another year, UIC Barcelona organised #UICSocialDay, the day no mission is impossible. Throughout the day, students, lecturers and administration and service staff from both campuses had the opportunity to take part in six missions to help those most in need.

The morning’s missions were “Sweet Wishes”, “Breakfast for Everyone”, “Bingo!” and “Do-Re-Mi”. The first consisted of preparing a sweet surprise, in this case candy bracelets, for women in disadvantaged situations from the Ared Foundation and Terral Association. The volunteers made a total of 450 bracelets, exceeding the target of 400. Part of the mission was carried out yesterday, as volunteers handed out sweets to women at the Ared Foundation, on World Women’s Day. The same will take place at the Terral Association on 13 March, in an activity open to the entire university community.

In the mission “Breakfast for Everyone”, participants prepared breakfast and snacks for homeless people from the Assís Shelter and for the La Merienda project run by the NGO Sud Integración. Volunteers put together 250 packs, which were delivered yesterday to people at both locations. Both the breakfast packs and sweet wishes included personal messages that convey UIC Barcelona’s love and support for all users of these social institutions.

The mission “Bingo!” featured a number of very special players: senior citizens from the Parc de Guinardó Nursing Home and Badia del Vallès Day Centre. The players were divided up between the University’s two campuses, where they were greeted by the mission’s participants, who challenged them to a game of bingo, shared stories and hung out with them for a while. At the end, all participants received chocolates courtesy of Lindt.

In the afternoon, a number of volunteers went to the Finestrelles Foundation to play petanque with people with intellectual disabilities as part of the mission “Fun”. In addition, for the first time ever, three users of the Foundation also took part in some of the other missions organised at the University.

The day concluded with the mission “Golden Goal”, which consisted of a football match with the team from Braval, an association from the Raval district of Barcelona which attends to children at risk of social exclusion. The match was closely contested and ended in a 4-4 draw. Afterwards, they all celebrated with a well-deserved snack.

Entertainment was provided courtesy of the mission "Do-Re-Mi", in which anyone interested had the opportunity to set the activities organised as part of #UICSocialDay to music.

The event was an immense success and all missions were completed thanks to the more than 300 people who took part and the 58 student supervisors between the two campuses. Once again, the event was supported by companies such as Disgo, S.A., which provided the sweets for the mission "Sweet Wishes", Sodexo, which brought in the breakfasts, and Lindt, which donated the boxes of chocolates for the mission “Bingo!”. The individuals in charge of the cafeterias on both campuses also lent a hand by providing a venue, materials and services to make the mission “Breakfast for Everyone” possible.