Building Bridges Association

the main goals for our association are:

Building up bridges to promote the european social construction
Bridge a gap encouraging an intercultural dialogue for a better understanding and knowledge of other cultures
Planning bridges through projects management to foster the citizens participation, specially young people.
Leaving a mark supporting any cultural, educational or artistic manifestación base don the above mentionned projects.

Altough we are new as association our personal career and experience is Wide. We have thought about creating this association to give shape and to have a closer collaboration that already existed between its partners for more than 10 years. Even if we live in different countries the bridges we build never ceased.

We are able to host participants to make a European Voluntary Service, a Youth Exchange, a Mobility Training as well as Erasmus. Our PIC number is 948821118.

We also offer language courses and cultural activities.

We can offer the following services in Madrid

Monitoring the development of the project step by step;
Accommodation in shared and fully equipped apartments in Madrid;
Constat evaluation and monitoring of all participants;
Coordinating and managing overall project with financial process;
Pedagogical/cultural/linguistic training at the arrival;
Organizing accommodation (shared appartment fully equipped), local transport and airport transfer;
Organization of internships in partnership with the employer (agreements with companies and institutions to be held in stages, setting the stage plan);
Presentation of a final report and dissemination of results;
Collaborate in the preparation of the Europass Mobility and/or other certificates;
SECTORS WHERE TRAINEES CAN MAKE THEIR INTERNSHIPS

Administration, Management, Human Reourcs and Secretary;
Agriculture, winemaking and viticulture;
Agro tourism, Alternative tourism, Hospitality (Hotels..) and Catering (Restaurant…);
Food and Cooking;
Environment;
Health & Social Care;
Information technology (software and hardware) Multimedia;
Graphic design;
Insurances;
Law;
Psycology;
Sports and leisure;
Social work;
Commerce;
Graphic design;
Engineering;
Marketing and Advertising.

SECTORS OF INTEREST

Intercultural learning, youth exchange, youth and adults permanent learning, non formal education, general information for young people, participation, vocational training, prevention of racims, prevention of social exclusión, youth communication, environmental projects, protection and fostering of cultural and artistic movements, citizens participation, etc.

The association was created to encourage integration and promotion of european culture between young european people. We tend to be a support for the fulfillment of vocational training learning, learning of languages and the general knowledge of the european labour market.

ACTIVITIES

Allthe activities we offer are the coreo f our association. To give information and counseling young people within the following principles:

Encouraging an intercultural dialogue for a better understanding of other cultural manifestations.
Educating young people in the values of a more active european citizensship.
Supporting any cultural, educational or artistic manifestation.
Promoting the european social construction.

We consider that the transnacional experience could offer young people the possibility of growing professionally within Europe thanks to their personal abilities being the main characters in the very near european future.

Builing Bridges fosters different projects and activities, mainly in the field of european projects as “Youth in Action”, Lifelong Learning Program, Leonardo Da Vinci and so on. The main goal is to offer young people to have access to mobility programs within the school in order to increase their understanding, respect and comprensión between different cultures and different systems and the meeting of different linguistic realities encouraging diverse learning strategies, responsibility and active participation of young people in society.

Our main activities are:

1. Youth information: We worked as volunteers in Europe with the Erasmus and Leonardo projects. We would like other european young people have the chance of living in another european country. It was a real change for us years ago thanks to the information we had. Our goal now is to counsel and to encourage them to start their own adventure. We are devoted to the european youth information. We have all experienced that years ago. There are many channels of information on european announcements so we tend to spread them within the young people.

We also counsel schools, high schools, private and public organisations in the field of non formal education and vocational training.

2. COUNSELING ON EMPLOYMENT FOR GRADUATES

Our main goal is counseling, informing, guiding and supporting the young graduates to continue their studies in order to have access to the labour market.

Within the activities oriented to entry the labour market, Building Bridges helps:

I. Managing and broadcasting job offers
II. Informing about self employement and counseling for the creation of new companies.

We are aware of the markets requests for young people and graduates. All the members of the association have already experiences dificulties when they were going to be hired in a competitive market and in process of recession.

Our asset is to be specialised in information and counseling on employement in Europe, but mainly in the United Kingdom. It exists a big demand of information for young people in that country and it is not always complete. There are many grants and internship in companies unknown for young people. Building Bridges believes than just hiring an agency is not the way to go abroad.

3, RESSOURCES ON CULTURE FOR YOUNG PEOPLE

We are already creating a web page with updated information and new communication channels used by young people on internships, grants, aids, festivals, etc… related to culture and the artistic creation. Months ago we were aware that if it even existed many information on that field the young creators do not find what they are looking for.

We want to work not just as an information centre but we are working on different communication channels (Youtube, Facebbok, Twitter, Twenty, etc) to spread and Exchange ideas and information for the professionals working in the field of culture.

We would like this group of people could be a model for the young academia community in matters concerning us as articles, seminars, debates, works, etc as well as other matters of interest.

4.TRAINING

We offer training courses in the field of the cultural management, as for instance:

Creation of cultural companies
Strategies for searching information on the web
English in the cultural field
Searching professional opportunities in the United Kingdom for young people working in the field of culture.

From a long time, we have been promoting courses taught by native teachers paying attention in the languages less spoken and in developing socio cultural aspects. We have already offered courses of italian, arab and chinese.

June 2008-2009: Course of art and italian culture of 24 hours, twice week during a month

Junio 2008-2009: Course of art and chinese culture of 24 hours, twice a week during a month.

July 2008-2009; Course of art and arab culture of 24 hours, twice a week during a month.

We will also encourage courses of languages in foreign countries during the whole year and especially in summer promoting activities of “Summer school”.

Some other training activities, guiding and counseling are:

External information and training on european programs in training centres, high schools, universities, privates companies, etc oriented to young people.
Intercultural education within other companies and organisations.
Information: since 2008 we are the core of the youth information centre in Madrid counseling about european programs for young people.
Back and front office on internacional opportunities for young people.

5. Cultural activities

All these years our association has developed many intercultural exchanges in the local and internacional field giving young people the opportunity to be responsible and to get involved and to participate actively in society.

From the beginning we have taken care of the training and volunteers through the participation in courses and seminars promoted by other companies and organisation in some other activities.

Do you like free books? What do you think about free books club? Books are members free are totally free… but is the main act of freeding books the one that touches the main core of Bookcrossing… Exchanging books has never been so exciting doing it with Bookcrossing… Our main goal is to make the World a big library. Bookcrossing is an infinite book exchange, the main and unique in its category.

If you would like to find us we just ask for a book, freed a book, being aware of the next events or just being a member of this movement we are willing to help you.

We have participated in 6 meeting freeding books:

Seix Barral, 2008
May 2008
La Vaguada, June 2009
Bookcrossing during Christmas on Pza de Oriente, Madrid, 2010 and 2011
Bookcrossing on the Book´s Day, 2012 in Museo de América, Madrid.

Furthermore, we have helped to create a meeting point in the Museo de América and in the Instituto Cervantes and we will organise our next bookcrossing in the Museo de América on the 27th of April 2013.

PARTNERS

Builiding Bridges Association participates very actively in other programs with other entities:

Bookcrossing
FabricaCultural
EYCA Alliance
Eurodesk