For over a year, Nurit Weitz and Rámiro Picó, two ex-participants from SABF founded the STS Rosario Project, in order to contribute to the sustainable development of their native city. We invite you to know more about this project in this interview.
Why STS Rosario?
Nurit: STS Rosario is a NGO (ongoing legal proceedings) which objective is to contribute to the sustainable development of Rosario and the region through the development and implementation of Sustainable Technological Solutions, with the participation of professionals and students from a wide array of academicals formations.
Rámiro: We started in June 2009, in a group of 11 students and graduates from different engineering careers, gathered by the will of returning the society the education received in the public university.
Nurit: We proposed ourselves to detect issues and to realize projects in the city that end in an improvement of the life quality of the people who live here, providing a professional outlook, innovative solutions and encouraging the use of new technologies.
Rámiro: In April 2010, we incorporated 20 new members so as to be able to work at the same level with another 6 different projects, of diverse nature and limits counting with partners from different society sectors: educational institutions, companies, other NGOs and the Rosario Municipality.
How did the SABF experience contribute to the project and personal lives?
Nuritz: I’ve taken part of SABF 2007 and it was there when I started to consider the possibility of working in the third sector, in order to contribute something to the society from my engineering formation. At that moment, I still had classes and other personal projects, but the idea kept running around my mind and, luckily, in 2009, after finishing my career and working in a company, I found someone who helped me start what I’ve been dreaming since a couple of years. Definitely, the most important thing that I took from the forum was the networking between the participants!
Rámiro: I’ve been in SABF at its first edition when I was only 19 years old. Writing an essay was challenge for me, even more was the fact of taking part of the forum together with participants from all over the world. Something dazzling was to meet people with diverse expectations and projects with a lot of energy to work towards the society. Maybe seeing that attitude reflected in all those people was what gave me the security that I have nowadays when I think about projects I want to undertake: working for my city.
How do you work so that not only your projects are sustainable but also STS Rosario is?
Nurit: The topic related to sustainability is clearly a huge challenge. At first, we adopted a horizontal way of working, having projects together with ad-hoc cells because we thought the optimized way for this first step. In the medium term we will need a more hierarchical structure, with more specialized tasks, but the idea is to remain with the same democratic way we normally take decisions, because we think it’s critical in order to maintain the incoming people motivated.
Rámiro: Beyond that, we try to make meetings every 6 months to analyze what’s been happening and what we’d like to do in the future, not only related to projects but mainly in the conceptual field regarding the way we work and the position we’re taking in the society.
** Nurit**: Regarding the time dedication of the members of STS Rosario, the idea is to be flexible in order to accept the amount of time that each of us can dedicate, but respecting the deadlines of every single project. In that sense, we are extremely lucky to work with other institutions. Working while trying to satisfy commitments is a great way to keep yourself motivated, but never forgetting that the main objective is to influence positively in society!
For more information please visit STS Rosario Project website
