Educar en la Calle: First Encounter

In a previous post,  I told you all about my journalism class and our magazine Mas+Menos. More importantly, I told you all about my chosen subject for my article that I was about to investigate. Well, it's one month later and a whole-lotta-crap happened. So I'm gonna tell you about it!

As you will remember, my article is about Jorge Morillo and his project called Educar en la Calle (Educate in the Street). Besides some general background information, I knew really nothing about him or the project at the start. 

My professor set up my first interview with Jorge. We were to go to a small conference at an office in Sevilla, and Jorge was to talk about his project and personal experiences. My professor and I thought this would be a great way for me to introduce myself to Jorge and gather some general information for my article. Seems just dandy, right?

Almost. 

As my professor is giving me the details of the conference he says, "Oye, Molly. Una cosa..." which means "Hey, Molly. One thing..." He then precedes to tell me that Jorge will be picking me up in his "moto" (yes, that would be a motorcycle). And upon seeing my more than surprised facial expression he says "Oh don't worry. He will bring you a helmet."

Now, I had never ridden on a motorcycle in my life (Dad would never allow it, of course), and so naturally I was (more than) a tad nervous. But hey, I'm an adventurous girl, so I said "Alright!" 

The next day, I waited at the designated spot for Jorge. I kept a good lookout for him as I was nervous that I would have trouble finding him on the busy street. But oh, was I wrong. 

I had to sort of laugh at myself when he pulled up looking like this. My professor had told me that he was a little "eccentric," but I honestly did not know what to expect. 

As you can see, he is dressed to the T in all green. Shirt, jacket, hat, pants, shoes, everything. He also is sporting a sweet vest with pins on it that say things such as "Peace" and have pictures of Jesus on them.  I therefore immediately thought, "This is my kind of guy."

Note: The reason he is dressed in all green is primarily because he is a die-hard fan of Betis futbol, a second division soccer team in Sevilla. Betis used to play in the first division with Sevilla (and Madrid, Barcelona, etc) but recently got knocked down to second division. In Sevilla, there exists two kinds of people: fans of Sevilla and fans of Betis. You cannot be both and you cannot associate with those from the opposite team. This is a very serious matter.

Jorge did not hesitate to start our conversation. He immediately began talking about everything from Educar en la Calle, to religion, to soccer, to his family, to his eating habits--everything. (He literally talked from the moment I met him until the moment I left him, in a thick, Spanish accent no less.)

Then, he hands me the helmet. It was green of course and slipped right over my head. I then hopped on the back of the motorcycle and hung on for dear life. I unfortunatley do not have any pictures of me on the bike, or of my terrified face during the ride (with my eyes closed almost the entire time). I'm sure it was a sight to see. 

Before we even reached the conference, I could already see what kind of a person he was: just jacked about life. He is obviously passionate about his work, soccer, people, Jesus, and life in general and loves to tell people about it.  
 

We finally arrived at the office of Telefónica de España where Jorge was to give his presentation. This is sort of a typical thing for Jorge as many people are interested in his story. 


The atmosphere at Telefónica was a typical office space: neatly aligned desks with people wearing headsets and quietly working at their desks in business casual dress. So you can imagine my giggles at Jorge in the middle of this scene.

During the presentation, Jorge did speak about his project Educar en la Calle, but in fact spoke more about his view on life. He talked about values like friendship and love that are crucial to fulfilling lives and of course, education. He repeated the phrase "somos ser humanos" a lot, which means "We are all human." He said that although we all have different opinions, experiences, and perspectives, above all we are human, and that is the most important thing. 

He also spoke of his belief that he was put on the Earth by God to help others--to re-instill hope in those areas where it has been lost for a long time. He spoke of his idea of education and how he works for the hope that the children will have a better future.

He further gave some accounts of his personal experiences. One in particular ended with a story about a person who participated in the project who told him "Thanks to you we are normal people." Jorge then commented on how strong of a response that is, and how incredible it is that something so simple like playing soccer with disadvantaged kids can have such a large impact on their lives.

Finally, he ended the conference with a documentary about his project Educar en la Calle. Here is a clip from the video. It is in Spanish, but you can watch it to get an idea of what he does.


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So although I started my first interview way outside of my comfort zone, my first encounter with Jorge Morillo proved to be well worth the motorcycle ride, and a promise of rewarding experiences to come.