In July, we organised an afternoon full of astronomical activities at the civic centre Vil·la Urània (Barcelona)  for the Sahrawi children spending the summer with host families in Barcelona and neighbouring cities.

Around 20 children with their host families observed the Sun for the first time and learnt about the solar system planets, its sizes and distances while they built models in clay and painted their own planets. ICE-CSIC members Claudia Gutiérrez, Manuel Perger, Daniele Viganó, Eduard Aguilar and Jorge Rivero were part of the activity.

Amanar returned to the Tindouf refugee camps near Tindouf (Algeria) to share astronomy with the Sahrawi community within the framework of the FiSahara Filmfest. For a week, the project showcased the Virtual Reality product Desert Stars as part of the festival and also organised educational activities in schools, teacher trainings and observations with telescopes. ICE-CSIC members Fabio del Sordo and Jorge Rivero were part of the organisers of these activities at the camps.

On 25 August, ICE-CSIC in collaboration with the Castelldefels Astronomical Group (Astrofels) organised an outreach activity for Sahrawi children and their host families in Castelldefels, at the Astrofels association observatory, located in the Cal Ganxo Center for Environmental Activities. 

Twelve boys and girls together with their host families attended  the activity that began with a presentation about the planets in the Solar System, accompanied by a 'cosmic walk' calculating the sizes and distances between planets if the Earth were the size of a peppercorn. To understand the scaled distance between the Sun and the different planets, we walked the equivalent steps between them, also showing the equivalent sizes of each planet for them to acquire a better visualisation of Solar System scaled distances. The engineer Sofía Sisteré, the communication and outreach officer Alba Calejero, the predoctoral researcher Abubakr Ibrahim and the communication and outreach manager at ICE-CSIC Jorge Rivero were part of the activity.