Maika’i: Climbing walls where improvement is everything | future planet

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It’s not climbing, that’s what it means. Nacho Blass, 22, an environmental engineering student and climbing coach, says the sport instilled in him values ​​that he doesn’t think any contribute. At the same time he teaches how to climb the walls filled with colorful dams placed in a very delicate way in one of the non-stop opening covered climbing walls in Madrid and other Spanish cities, his students learn empathy, to become environmentally aware and respect the natural environment, while applauding and delighting in or encouraging a partner’s achievement On trying again. Climbing makes a group, a community passionate about rock music.

It’s not clear if Jorge Cagigal (24), an audiovisual communications and business and management (DAE) student, was more tempted by the idea of ​​starting his own production company or climbing up with his friends. With one of them, Angel Paraiso, also in his twenties, a senior social integration technician and dog trainer, they volunteered in 2017 for a month with the Hispanic Association Kelly Reckfrica (@Kelavrica) to Uganda, to the Komunia Environmental School, in the small community of Kimya. In that school they taught physical education classes, as well as helping out with whatever was available. It was the experience of their advantage and made them say out loud, “We’re going to do something.”

Upon noticing the boom that was appearing about climbing, they thought they could be a part of it some other way. Two years later, Paraiso returned to the same Ugandan school, this time accompanied by Pablo Ontolin (Senior Physical and Sports Animation Technician and 1 Sports Technician). They went with the idea of ​​building a climbing wall. The first project of Maika’i, the Association for Sports and Outdoor Activities named after the Hawaiian word meaning well-being, founded by Nacho Blas, Jorge Cajigal, Angel Paraiso and Pablo Antolin, to which we must add Sergio Pascual (INEF) and Jaime Asocaro (Senior Technician) in the Animation for Physical and Sports Activities and Mathematical Technician 1). For all of them, the path was set in some way climb over (Tweet embed), a non-profit association that develops its charitable work from climbing, just as the Chilean does Free Sports Foundation, which attempts to introduce the escalation of disadvantaged environments as a means of individual and collective development.

Young Mica loves to climb, but at that time they did not have the technical knowledge to mount a wall. This is where Manolo Lee, an architect and engineer of climbing walls in Madrid, has been playing for more than 20 years and a key piece in the organization’s organizational chart. Since he could not go to Uganda, he had to explain via WhatsApp to Paraíso and Antolín what they had to do step by step to raise the climbing wall. They had the help of Mugabe, a local carpenter who cut wooden slats with his cleaver and did not know what he was doing. When they finished work, they said Mugabe had hallucinations.

Although the wall they built was smaller than they initially thought, they were amazed at the ease of its construction. Without funding, with no one to support them, except for a few Spanish climbing walls that contributed materials (dams, bolts, and climbing shoes), a group of children and adults were, in their own way, able to start a social impact project.

Without funding and without anyone’s support, a group of children and adults started a project with a social impact تأثير

With the idea of ​​building a covered climbing wall in mind, after the experience in Uganda, they enrolled in the Entrepreneurs Course. At the budget level, the new project was getting out of hand, but at the same time, the number of followers in it was high كان Your Instagram Profile Their number reached a thousand after posting pictures and videos of what they had done in the Ugandan school. As a result of this project, the German NGO Soup and socks, who works in the Greek refugee camp Katsikas, contacted them and discussed the possibility of building a climbing wall similar to the one in Uganda. “And that’s what we’ve been looking for,” Blass says, at the Climbing brand’s facilities. mushroom pillow.

A priori, on paper, he tells me via Zoom, from the town of Ioannina (Greece), the project looks simple: a paneled warehouse on the inside with embankments attached to it, with space for more activities, in addition to climbing. Although funding is always an issue, Lee himself admits that this time the worst enemy is the coronavirus. Lockdowns and quarantines have delayed work, but have not diminished the reserves of the spirit or strength of the Maika’i members. Not from the people who helped them by providing the materials. One of them was Carlos Sancho, founder of the Mushroom Pad, who not only arranged the climbing wall in Katsikas, but also made out-of-pocket payments to send a pallet containing materials donated by himself and other companies. Helping is a practical and expensive act. The children of Maika’i know this very well, which is why they are so grateful to people like Sanchito and to friends and families. The latter was the first to buy Those solidarity shirts they put up for sale to raise money لجمع (It’s for sale and can still be purchased), as well as donating money to crowdfunding campaigns I’ve launched.

Before they arrived, Antolin says, they were told that boredom was the norm in the camp. People don’t have much to do besides being confined. What the Maika’i team wants is to tell you what climbing means and what it can do for you. Managing emotions at the social level becomes a powerful tool for personal development, with occurrence at the individual and collective level. “Climbing has a good time and gains some very useful values ​​on a personal level,” he says.

The idea was to get people to feel part of the project and stay alive, not dependent on the existence of Maika’i.

Lli explains that the project isn’t just about building a climbing wall, but staying a little longer and teaching them the entire climbing process, the philosophy involved, as well as engaging them to become watchers. In contrast to that of the small community of Uganda, in Katsikas, Pablo, Angel, Sergio, and Manolo, who visited Greece, they were able to rely on the workshops of metal and wood that were supplied to them. it works darling (an initiative that is part of the Soup and Socks organization mentioned above), as are the people who work in it. The construction of the climbing wall was a work of everyone’s cooperation. The idea was to involve people so that they feel part of the project and survive, and not rely on the presence of the mecha people.

Through the association’s Instagram account, it was possible to follow the process of building the climbing wall: every day of the 28 days they worked there was always someone new to take part in. Hands did not decrease to raise the skeleton of the beast, which is what they call the main structure of the climbing wall. Before they have to level the floor, apply a concrete base to it, install it, drill holes, paint wood varnish, galvanize the steel, weld and raise the balconies, the roof of the structure and fit the plywood. They say the lost tools were invented by me. On a climbing wall there is no shortage of color or prey. I suppose that from the first moment they caught them, as they could, at first, good 45-year-old, called Giant (Titan could be one of the adjectives the climber repeats most), Muhammad and Jimmy, to this finally, to be seen in A story on Maika Mai’s Instagram, straining with one hand and jumping with the other.

In a later conversation with Antolín, he said they had already been in line for two weeks at the climbing wall. That there are mixed classes of men and women of different cultures and religions, and classes of men and women only. With the latter the young man also confirms that they went to the mountain to climb one block, which is known as Boulder. With the guys they climbed the rope on the track. An activity they hope to repeat soon in a mixed fashion.

In Katsika refugee camp, three kilometers from Ioannina, in northwestern Greece, near the border with Albania, Antolin says everyone is very grateful for what they have done. A new community of rock fans who hope to be, at least, penultimate.

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