Pietro Piccini Co-teacher in Gaia team

Pietro Piccini is from Brazil, and he was a DI in September team 2008 – working in TCE South Africa during his project period. Here he tells a little about his time as a “Gaia co-teacher” and his thoughts about the future.

My first idea after my 6 months in TCE in South Africa was to go back again as a project leader in TCE – in South Africa or somewhere else. I still have this wish, but when I came back to CICD I started thinking about being a teacher. Being a teacher here could also be very helpful for training and sending good new DI-s to the projects. So now I am thinking about doing this for 1-2 years and this way also get a lot of knowledge and experience that can be really useful as a project leader.

Now I am practicing as a co-teacher in the Gaia team together with Wendy. As a teacher, I am learning how to work with people 24/7 – to organize them and all the activities of the Gaia team. I like to be with people, so I enjoy this very much – it’s a good life.

Wendy and I organize the week together. One of my  tasks is for example to take care of organizing and checking the maps for the leafletters, which is quite a big job as we now have 26 people in the Gaia team involved in the Door-to-door clothes collection project! I try to motivate the students, to encourage them and help them to get energy. I have recent experience as a Gaia student myself last year, and these experiences are really helpful now.

Last week I had the full responsibility (with some help from Karin!) as Wendy was away the whole week. I was organizing the week plan and the study day, and solving problems like the van that broke down…it was a busy week! When you keep the mind and body busy you don’t feel the problems as “problems” – you just need to solve them. Like my project leader used to say: “There are no problems – only challenges!” So this week has been a good challenge for me!
One very good experience was last week’s Study Day. We went to visit the Coal Mine Museum in Wakefield, and it was difficult to organise the transport but all the students were enjoying the visit very much. They were also asking a lot about many other things, for example how to improve the yield in the clothes collection. When we came home the team decided to have a meeting to discuss some different things and they invited me to come to this meeting also.
At the meeting they decided to start to bring 1.500 leaflets every day to give out, instead of 1.000, so that they can get better results with more bags donated. They are building up the friendship and the co-operation…and it is really good to see how the team is working hard to improve. I had a very good feeling after this day.

Also, when the van broke down last Friday – they still had 4 ½ maps to collect (meaning areas where we should pick up bags). So I had to find out what to do…all the way to the school I was thinking through to make a good plan, and I found a solution that I explained quickly to Karin when I came back and she agreed.  I had asked the co-driver from the van to come back with the maps, and we at once went out in 2 groups of 3 to collect the last areas.
I was working as a manager in Brazil, but this was with 1-2 people and mostly taking place in the computer. But what I do now is all the time with people!
To organise the cars last week was very difficult, with 26 Gaia-s going out and also the DI-s had Partnership week and were out selling magazines. So Lis and I met every day under Karin’s eyes to agree who was using the minibuses and the other cars.
One thing that can also be difficult is to organise someone twice my age…so in the beginning I was sometimes a bit shy and not knowing what to do. But I am learning how to get the team to laugh, how to get good relationship and have a good contact with them.
Sometimes I cannot be friends with them – like last week I got very angry when someone had not put back the maps, and the collection van went out without them…but I want to be a good leadership for them without being “authority”. This is something I have never done before, so it is a good learning time for me. 

This is a hard programme. But also it can be a very deep experience. Working in a team, being busy all the time, solving problems all the time…so if you decide to come you can know that you will have a hard time but also get experiences you cannot get many other ways.