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Each time you scroll your pictures, you find one specific folder related to specific dates that you are always very excited yet afraid to open it.

Time passes, you think your memory is too weak to hold all these colorful images in it, you think that with time all these experiences you lived & people you met and shared magical moments with them will be forgettable, as if they are some passengers who passed by for a moment in your life and left. as if you will not feel pain for their lose… but this weak memory, for the first time, ridiculously and sarcastically fails you. All the smallest details suddenly will be stuck in your head & in front of your eyes for the rest of your life… Ouch.

Life goes on… it’s a physical rule that you can’t change, Yet, while going on you keep your past present, you take those small lessons that taught you how to fight and walk forward, and you do that, you fight and walk forward.

Now I am back to my country where I work among all these cinema reels that holds history of cinema, people and culture, we are trying to clean and preserve them as if we are restoring a memory of a nation. It took me a travel to Portugal to understand the value of a memory, and a return to Lebanon to understand the importance of preserving it. Now I am very blessed that I lived and held these incredible moments of this experience with CaBuReRa team that will accompany me for the rest of my life.

Reem El Mohtar

MAPS

After three months in Beirut, I started to work in Maps which is located in Faro, a city that belongs to the well-known region of the south of Portugal named Algarve.

MAPS – Movimento de Apoio à Problemática da Sida is a private organization, non-profit, with registration on May 13th, 1992.

The mission of MAPS is to develop, promote and ensure services to the community responding to social problems, such as, HIV / AIDS, drugs addiction, sexuality, homeless, immigrants, ethnic minorities and discriminated groups. It aims to contribute to treatment, social development, integration, social inclusion, prevention and awareness of policy issues. Finally, MAPS wish to pass their values of social responsibility, solidarity, ethics, dedication, social justice, commitment, professionalism, integrity, ambition, transparency, efficiency, collaboration, participation and unity, to those who get involved with it. The next picture is good to present the beautiful team that I work with (I am behind an orange paper on the upper left!).

Maps has several projects underway and I participate in some such as:

CENTRO DE ALOJAMENTO TEMPORÁRIO (CAT)

It hosts individuals who are in a social rupture situation (homeless), without physical or psychiatric problems requiring special medical attention. This project aims the social inclusion of people affected by the phenomena of social exclusion. The intervention is based on the care and monitoring of the clients, looking for enhancing the skills and daily habits (hygiene, personal care, daily routines). This project includes nine clients.

CENTRO DE ATENDIMENTO E ACOMPANHAMENTO PSICOSSOCIAL (CAAPS)

It promotes psychosocial care services, monitoring at the individual and family level, with the objective of social integration, through training. At the same time, carries out psychosocial activities for the target group. This project supports, monthly, between thirty five and sixty clients.

SERVIÇO DE APOIO DOMICILIÁRIO (SAD)

It provides home cares to people who are infected and affected by HIV / AIDS, providing psychosocial support, personal and domestic hygiene, food, laundry, transportation and monitoring to medical cares, preparation and administration of medical treatments. This project integrates fifteen clients.

RESIDÊNCIA COLMEIA

It supports, temporarily, homeless with HIV / AIDS. This project hosts clients, promoting their empowerment and social inclusion. It integrates five clients.

EQUIPAS DE APOIO SOCIAL DIRECTO (EASD)

This multidisciplinary team provides individualized support for people with specific problems, promoting the reduce of risk behaviors. The intervention is performed daily by field visits, providing: aseptic material, distribution of preventive material, social and psychological support and information / education related with health. This project conducts awareness campaigns in schools and for the community. It supports, monthly, an average of two hundred clients

AS MADALENAS II

It is directed to sexual workers and clients of commercial sex, where they can benefit from family planning medical support, detecting sexual diseases, free vaccination (hepatitis B, tetanus and diphtheria), psychosocial support, counseling, laundry and showers, clothes bank, linguistic mediation, transportation and advisement about law issues. This project supports, monthly, an average of one hundred and fifty clients.

CUIDA-TE!

This project aims to contribute to the reduction of the use of drugs, to promote the reduction of infections transmitted through sexual and blood, to provide the HIV analysis and to approach the target group to health and social services.

OTHER PROGRAMS AND CAMPAIGNS PROMOTED

The Preservativa-te Campaign aims to contribute for the reduction of the prevalence of HIV / AIDS and other sexual diseases in the community. In the next picture you can see me in action!

Thank you for this wonderful experience!

Ana Barreto

For me, going on an adventure means starting with an idea of where you want to go or what you want to achieve but being completely open to things going wrong in the knowledge that really it’s the unexpected things that create the best memories. It’s very well and good saying that taking a wrong turn is a blessing in disguise but let’s face it often you don’t realize it until afterwards. Chances are someone’s photos or trip has inspired you to take the roundtrip in the first place.

Maybe mine are inspiring you right now. So you dream of going to the places you see in the photos and when you get there, of course you want a similar photo. But create your own landscapes too. By discovering random places and getting lost you’ll find spots just as beautiful and too unique that you can capture. It will make showing your friends and family your holiday photos, that bit more interesting.

Travel memories a way to keep stuff together and display the place even if you don’t have time to put it in an album . If I learnt anything from this experience it’s that memories are one of the most important things we have. Everyday spent in Palestine is a great adventure, coming back to my old life is a great challenge itself.

We live our daily lives facing challenges and adventures with the reality we live in It’s a great honor for me to be a part of this life here.

Our souvenirs are the heroes that sacrifice their lives every day for the sake of this land, the checkpoints that we have to cross from one city to another and wait for hours there until the soldiers decide to let us pass every day in Palestine is written in History and I’m proud to be a part of it .

Olivia Odeh

A friend recently told me, that it’s true that you’ll return to your old life, but remember you’re going back with new eyes and you’ll start seeing things from another perspective, and you’ll find yourself acting differently even in the same situations that you used to face before, but this is part of changing and growing up, so take your time, because you’ll need a lot of time to understand yourself and where you will be standing. Since we often worry about what we’ve yet to achieve, and sometimes we fall as victims to the idea that we are running out of time, and when we think about the long list of things we still want to accomplish, we realize that there’s more inner work that needs to be done.

I have to admit that the first month in Portugal was the hardest, but it was just preparing me for the best that was yet to come, I was involved in an environment where I would have completely refused to even think that I would ever accept, But this is the key to Life I guess, that sometimes you have to fight what you think you know , for the sake of the unknown, and in my own opinion I think this is the most liberating experience, you have to grow and allow yourself to face your fears in order to explore what do you really want in life.

It was my first time to travel alone, thousands of miles away from everyone I’ve ever known, it was so challenging, but I knew I was so blessed to actually have the chance to be a part of this experience. I’ve realized that I was living the best time of my life, I was laughing my heart out every second, I’ve actually gained a lifetime experience that changed everything about my world and about me, I’ve gained friends and family who I believe will never leave my side. I’ve found myself, and I’ve gained myself, and the most important thing is that I was being me, only me, Natalie.

Natalie Esmail

It has been almost 3 months since I returned from Jordan. I’m back in my hometown (Faro) doing my second CaBuReRa internship.

It begun on the 10th of August in ECOS – Cooperativa de Educação, Cooperação e Desenvolvimento, CRL. I’ve joined the team of the project Algarve2020 – Um Contrato Jovem, a project about youth participation, working in the communication part of the project’s event “Fórum Juventude Algarve”.

Since the beginning of October I’ve also joined the Round-Trip team, another project of ECOS, helping in the communication of the project. Round-Trip is about active democratic citizenship.

It has been a challenge, everyday learning new things in my field of studies. It has been a very good experience and the ECOS team has been very welcoming since the beginning.

More about ECOS:

ECOS – Cooperativa de Educação Cooperação e Desenvolvimento, CRL is an organisation registered in January 2010 with the purpose of answering  two challenges:

• Contribute to the promotion, acknowledgment and appreciation of non formal education as methodology for human development and social transformation;

• Contribute for the social integration and unity as an agent of community development.

The ECOS office

Sara Magalhães

“How much do you miss Portugal ? as much as I smelled tear gas this week”

What I really miss in faro is not only sitting near the marina and feel the beautiful wind there , what I missed is “freedom”.

Mahmoud Darwish said “ a Palestinian poet” : “If you live, live free or die like the trees, standing up”.

it wasn’t really convenience for me to see a marina in Bethlehem to feel that I’m free, but smelling tear gas is.

In the past month in Palestine our lifestyle changed to the “active resistance mood” , it wasn’t really a choice neither politics, it’s the reality, everyone thinks that it’s politics but actually “politics is my life”.

The only thing that I fought for abroad Palestine is how to get out of my bed every morning. I wanted to use every single minute to make a good memory , however, I also haven’t slept much in Bethlehem, these days I’m trying to contact every person I know so I can make sure that they’re okay or maybe to have a last good memory because I wouldn’t know if it would be the last conversation ever !

Bethlehem looks like a small prison , everyone knows everyone, which made it hard in terms of thinking who’s going to be next ? Who’s going to be next day just another picture on posters ?

One bullets was enough to get me an answer like the bullet that killed my friend Mutaz last week.

Living in this fear is different, I’m not really afraid of losing someone I know, I’m afraid of losing everyone I know , and from that perspective I decided to spend every single minute with joy, love and forgiveness. Now I choose to be more happy , and more strong. Today I choose to resist and  to stand up against reality and live like a standing tree.

Baraah

One of the first projects I’ve worked with here in Portugal was Slowmed. This is also an ENPI CBCMED project about Food as a Means of Dialogue in Mediterranean Contexts, it counts with the partnership of 6 countries: Portugal, Spain, Italy, Egypt, Lebanon and Palestine.

I could talk about the project itself but that was not the most important thing to me the people were.

I met a lot of new people, and to get the chance to be with people from the country where I just came back from, was very good, somehow it was like relive memories of the CaBuReRa experience in Lebanon but with the upgrade that it was with more people.

It really was amazing to show my region (Algarve) our traditions, food and heritage to people that have never been here and really wanted to taste the food, to hear the stories, to see the places…

There were different types of people, ones more reserved, and others more outgoing talking with everyone (me included) and just wanting to live and experience everything.

It was a truly rewarding experience in different aspects. First I could solve one problem:

I wanted to send a present to Lebanon to my friends and, through Patricia, I’ve done that – she got in touch with Ahmad and everything was done! Amazing how the world is so small…

Second, I could taste again the flavours and the smells that I miss already so much!

Third, it was a learning experience, in every aspect… I remember that the group that was always laughing and joking was the group from Palestine. One of them told me (after I said to him that they were crazy) that they needed to distract their minds and live the moment every moment, be happy where the happiness was… No need to say anything!

Mónica Mendonça

In my opinion, real life lessons are more valuable and teach us more than theories leaned in schools. This mobility gave me the opportunity to gain precious lessons through experiencing a different lifestyle from the one I used to. Living a three months in Faro, Portugal independently helped me understand the hidden lessons behind every single problem I have faced.

Day by day, I am noticing the big difference that this mobility has done to my life & the special touch it added to it 🙂

Yes it’s true that, “Travelling leaves you speechless, then turns you into a storyteller”. And it’s also true that my family got insane for that they have been listening to the same stories for the past three months.

These are the ones who made this mobility a one to remember and with whom I made worthy memories and stories that deserves to be told not only once but thousand times.

Those unforgettable days made me know that living a day without a big smile drawn on your pretty face is a day wasted.

Dalia Lubbadeh

In the beginning the ending seems so far away….

In the beginning you never think how much you will want one more minute in a busy street, or in an overcrowded cab that clearly didn’t fit all six of us. How much you will actually miss waiting for a cab in a busy street. Or how the air smells like this mixture of spices and foods that you had never tasted before. How much you will want to walk around town one more time. See all the lights and all the colours of the city. In the beginning you never think how fast time will go by. How you will wish you could look all the people and the way they bring the city to life, just one more time. And that everything keeps going on without you… Well, that just too tortuous to think about. I hope Amman forgives me for all the days I cursed my luck, thinking how much I would like to be in my hometown enjoying the summer. Not being an exuberant country, its simple beauty and nature sneak up on you. And by the time I realized it, Jordan had taken an adoring, permanent place in my memory.

It’s an unfair thing, time. At close, it looks infinite. But from a distance, so limited.
I thank CaBuReRa for providing the opportunity to know all the places and all the people I met. These past six months were quite an experience and I’m very happy to have been a part of it.

To all the people with whom I shared this experience and who were my companions for three months, I miss you dearly!

Sara Magalhães

Portuguese TG2 in Jordan

The work developed in MAPS – Movimento de Apoio à Problemática da Sida – is part of a reality with ordinary people whose lives have been transformed.

Through this article you will look more closely to their habits, priorities and ways of living.

The intervention is performed daily by field visits, providing: aseptic material, distribution of preventive material, social and psychological support and information / education related with health.

MAPS intend to engage proactively to the emerging needs of the community, through an ethical imperative that everyone is entitled to a life with dignity.

This is the reality that MAPS team faces every day.

I thank all who made it possible for me to join this wonderful team and I hope that one day humanity will become based on love, compassion, peace, forgiveness, solidarity and goodness.

– Ana Barreto, Portugal