Submitted by Patricia Lluch Prats, ACC

The IMPULSA Y AYUDA (Helping Hand) initiative provided pro bono coaching for a non-profit organization, Barcelona CTUA. 

As a volunteer with the organization, Patricia Lluch Prats, ACC, saw the emotional shortcomings of refugees and asylum seekers through their life stories (as well as young people without resources and without references who were starting university). She decided to also provide coaching to an accompaniment project with a group of Moroccan refugees, for a person from Mali in the process of asylum with a very hard history behind him and giving coaching tools to mentors and vulnerable students during the first year of university.

For the participant in the Asylum process, the resulting impact has been re-trust in life, social and work integration, and support in emotional management. The engagement began in December 2019, but intensified during the pandemic due to the death of his father in Mali.

For the group of Moroccan boys, the engagement began during the pandemic for emotional management and labor and educational insertion. Some of them have already finished the process and others are in it because due to culture and different educational levels the process is slower. The initial group follow-up was three months, once a week for three hours. The individual processes in parallel are currently running.

For the mentors and referents of vulnerable people in the first cycle of university, there have been three sessions of three-hours providing support tools and emotional management.

The resulting impact has been the success of student outcomes in their first year of college and the growth of mentors in showing their vulnerability. There has been an increase in confidence and decrease in demands, each adapting to the student, legitimizing him as a person without judgments or labels.