I’m Ana, I’m from Lisbon and I’m currently doing a PhD in Biomedical Engineering. This could be a CV introduction… But it does not truly describe me… I work with youth groups in a catholic context, I’ve been 1 month doing a mission in Mozambique in 2017, I’ve done volunteering with the homeless and more recently with the elderly, visiting them in their houses. I love to work with teenagers and youth groups and to share my life experience with them. I love to travel, to read, to sleep… I have latin dances classes. I’m passionate about people and how we can grow with each other, and I’ve started working as a volunteer at Creative Mornings Lisbon in January. It has been 6 months of this incredible adventure! I’ve gone from “surreal” to “wonder” in a few  months and it has been quiet a journey!

First, I need to share how I got there, to CM events. I started attending CM Lx in September 2018 through my friend Lucia who was a volunteer at the time. She always said amazing things about the event, about how inspiring and happy she got there in each month. So, moved by her sharing and by the need to attend some seminars for my PhD, I started coming to CM Lx. I must thank my friend Lucia for sharing this amazing gift with me. I loved the event, the talk, the breakfast… but most of all I loved the relaxed and yet inspiring environment, where everyone belongs. That month’s theme was Chaos and I felt so empathized by the speaker and his life… My life was very chaotic at the time… I felt I had no direction… So incredibly (and completely true) Creative Mornings did change the things! I enjoyed being there, it made me feel good, belonging and it made me re-think my projects and my life. And the most important: it helped me gaining motivation, particularly for my PhD project. I attended all the events after that and then suddenly I saw on Instagram that they were looking for volunteers… I felt tempted to immediately answer but then I heard all those little voices in my head saying “can you manage to do it?”, “do you have the time?”, “you have been crying to have some available time and going to start another thing in your life?!”… well,  but as I was already living in chaos and I already attended the event each month, it was just adding some extra work to it during the event. So, after some days I sent an e-mail saying that I would like to be a volunteer in the event, I wanted to be part of it… And here I am, a volunteer for 6 months.

I’m usually responsible for check-in, so I see and talk to everyone when they arrive. I’m the first morning face each attendee sees. And I like that. I also help packing up everything when it ends and I talk to volunteers, attendees and the speaker after the talk… I like to casually talk, to network, but with no pretensions of this or that. Just for the pleasure of meeting new people and to chat a little bit about the theme, about the speaker, about how inspired we all feel this Friday of the month… For me Creative Mornings Friday is with no doubt the best Friday of the month!

I could continue saying amazing things about the event, or the themes, or my tasks, or… but I would like just to share how fortunate I am for having this project in my life, for the team where I belong and for this creative and inspiring environment, where I feel completely integrated even with all my geekness and my insecurities.

Thanks Creative Mornings, you motivate and inspire me to continue pursuing my dreams and projects each month! Let’s keep this thing up mate!