Talk: Veinte años trabajando en cooperación en América Latina

Posted on 13 July 2021

Interactive online event in Spanish language on how to pursue a career on international development projects in Latin America

On Thursday 24 June 2021 the Department of Language and Linguistic Science hosted the interactive online workshop ‘Veinte años trabajando en cooperación en América Latina’ presented by Carmen de Diego Fonseca, Development Programmes Manager from the Spanish Cooperation Training Centre in Montevideo, Uruguay.

The event consisted of an introductory talk delivered entirely in Spanish, followed by a Q&A session with a lively audience interaction in both Spanish and English language.

Created by Carmen Álvarez-Mayo and Dr Elia Lorena López (Dept of Language and Linguistic Science) as one of the extracurricular activities organised for students in the LLS Languages Degree programme, the workshop aimed to boost student employability skills whilst putting target language competences into practice. Although primarily intended for students in the BA in Spanish, this successful online event saw an extremely diverse participating audience, ranging from LLS students to University-wide Spanish language speakers and members of the local community.

On the day, Carmen de Diego Fonseca started the event by talking about her experience in the field of volunteering, and how through this she got involved in international development and humanitarian aid projects. She then illustrated some of the projects she worked on (Gender Equality Basket Funding on Education (Bolivia, Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden and Spain), Intercultural Birthing Rooms in Bolivian Hospitals and Bridging the [Disability] Gap (Burkina Faso, Ecuador, Ethiopia, Paraguay, Sudan) among others) and the positive effects these had on disadvantaged communities. Of particular importance, Carmen took the audience through an inspirational journey on socio-cultural differences and intercultural awareness by sharing firsthand experiences gained from working across several countries in South America.

“There was a great mixture of participants from the Department and the University, which has inspired us to organise more events like this, featuring specialised terminology and expressions linked with different registers associated with various areas of work. We would like to thank all attendees and in particular to Carmen de Diego Fonseca for sharing her experiences with us!” - Carmen Álvarez-Mayo and Dr Elia Lorena López, Dept. Language and Linguistic Science

"It was a really useful and insightful event, I hadn’t really heard of la Cooperación Española before, so being able to hear about the really important work they do as well as how this has linked in with the Spanish modules in my degree was really beneficial. Also, learning about the work of the Cooperación was also useful as the projects that take place are themes and causes that in the future I would potentially like to work on through a similar platform, so in this way it has been very insightful!" - Leah, UG Final Year student (French and Spanish)

To watch the recording of the event: Veinte años trabajando en cooperación en América Latina (YouTube)