Farewell Anaïs, and thank you!
From Fresker to Country Coordinator, to permanent employee, to volunteer again – here’s the story of one of our first Freskers!
It all started in May 2018 when she participated in the workshop for the first time. Anaïs was already an ardent ecologist. When she was 13, she organised a school field trip to watch Al Gore’s movie, « An inconvenient truth » with her classmates.
In August 2018, she packed her bags and embarked for Egypt. In her suitcase: a deck of Climate Fresk cards of course! As she was the only one who knew about Climate Fresk, she decided to take on the role of Country Coordinator for Egypt. By day, she would teach History and Geography in a French school. By night, phewsh! She would turn into a relentless Fresker! Fresking in schools, festivals and events, French institutions, NGOs, local cultural centers… Fresking kids and adults, expats and locals, men and women from all horizons in Egypt.
After 6 months, she’d fresked so much that she had a waiting list of a dozen people wanting to become facilitators. She contacted the association in Paris, and asked whether it would be possible to send out someone to train these super motivated wannabe Freskers. And guess who came? Cédric himself! (the author of the game and founder of the association, for the newbees :))
Together they spent a few days training 50 people, and raising awareness even more to the impacts of climate change via a one day event, with close to a hundred people attending. Climate Fresk in Egypt had officially taken off!
Cédric bears witness: “Anaïs is a determined woman! She insisted so much on my coming to Egypt that I eventually traveled to Cairo to facilitate workshops and trainings there. She had prepared my coming so thoroughly that the programme was very heavy (5 trainings in 5 days).”
So naturally, when it came to hiring a permanent employee to focus on the international development of Climate Fresk, the association in Paris thought of her. For Anaïs, that was a dream come true.
She returned to Paris and started getting in touch with people around the world wanting to get more involved in developing Climate Fresk in their countries. She onboarded close to 50 Country Coordinators in less than one year, and built digital tools to support them in their tasks.
She set up recurring online workshops and trainings in English, to build up the Fresker’s community abroad, and coordinated the translations of the cards – in nothing less than 35 different languages! With her infectious enthusiasm, her dedication and her incredible energy, she gave the international development of Climate Fresk a real boost, and contributed to a sense of community between Freskers around the world.
In July 2021, she joined the COP26 Coordinators in their intense efforts to launch this huge project. Together, they helped 167 Freskers travel to Glasgow to fresk 775 people and train 161 new Freskers from 66 countries. This was a huge milestone for Climate Fresk’s development.
After 4 years dedicating herself to Climate Fresk, Anaïs now feels it’s time to tackle a new kind of challenge. She leaves the permanent team with a huge feeling of gratitude.
“Whilst this chapter is closing, the story continues! Thank you to all the Freskers that made this incredible adventure possible. Hope our paths cross again, somewhere around the world!” Anaïs.
From all our Freskers’ Community, and in 35 languages, best of luck to you in your endeavors, Anaïs!
Of course, we’re sad to see her go, but rest assured – she won’t be going far!
“Once a Fresker, always a Fresker!”