Cover letter written by Nerea in June 2013 to access the Master of decentralised cooperation, peace and development of the Public University of the Basque Country in Bilbao.
Dear Sir/Madam:
I am a young and highly motivated architect that seeks to broaden and deepen the knowledge acquired during these first years of my career.
I define myself as an architect committed with our current reality. Disgusted, in general, with a profession in which huge amounts of money have been wasted without taking into account the needs of the people and the scarcity of resources, I decided to learn how to reinvent myself towards a more social and participatory architecture. I have always believed in architecture as an activity that should be serving for a better world.
Since childhood, I have received an education based on humanitarian principles where the person as an individual and as a citizen has been the centre of the rights and duties that support modern society. Later on, I had the opportunity to participate in social responsibility projects that allowed me to see first hand many of the problems existing in our world. I also had a personal interest in pursuing courses with entities such as Alboan, Setem or architects without borders to be able to deepen into the resolution of current problems of inequality and crisis.
As a result of my work in Africa, I have been able to keep in touch and to introduce myself in a variety of actions related to the cooperation for development field. I am a member of the Senegalese NGO ‘ Hahatay are laughs of Gandiol ‘, created by a colleague and friend of Senegal to fight against illegal immigration. We are now working on the construction of a social Center that will provide work to local people and will allow to create future opportunities, turning around the current situation.
Today, after having obtained my degree in architecture, with a postgraduate degree in landscape and environmental architecture, I had the chance to get to know about the ‘Habitat’ programme of the United Nations, which seeks to support and collaborate in the development of solutions to housing needs, mainly related to habitability, urbanism and environment. I am highly motivated by both the programme approach and the arising opportunities to participate in projects of social content. More precisely, I have a great interest on the existing relationship between the Master on peace and development and the various programmes of the United Nations, together with the opportunity of getting involved in this kind of projects.
I think that it is a wonderful opportunity to be able to develop my professional career while participating in global development. And even more in moments like these where we need to retrieve a set of values that our society has lost.
Having said so, a deeper understanding of the cooperation world and the role of the various players who develop it acquire an importance that justifies my presence in the master.
I am convinced that if we all sum up our own contributions we can, together, change this world crisis. That is why I get down to work, with the objective of learning more about peace and development and to therefore be able to act accordingly.
I hope to be able to put my training to service this causes, as lucky citizens that we are.
Sincerely,
Nerea.
