Villa de Cura (Venezuela) (EFE).- The president of the Canary Islands, Ángel Víctor Torres, closed this Saturday his visit to America, which included activities in Cuba and Venezuela, with the commitment to maintain and increase aid to the In the continent.
We reiterate “the commitment of the Government to maintain and increase aid to the people of Cuba and Venezuela,” Torres told reporters in the town of Villa de Cura, 130 kilometers from Caracas, where he led a “meeting of Canarian traditions.” in which 23 cultural groups participated.
He described the trip, which began last Saturday, as an “intense week of institutional visit” in which he was able to talk with canaries from all the islands, as well as learn about “their circumstances and vicissitudes.”
“There are canaries that require an effort on our part (…) there cannot be first and second class canaries, we are all identical canaries, therefore, that effort that we have been making in recent years and that we have to continue making,” he insisted.
In this sense, he said, he returns to Spain with several requests made by his compatriots in America, some of them related to universal access to public health, and other issues that, he announced, they hope to “support and help.”
Within the framework of this visit, the regional government announced the approval of 100,000 euros in direct aid for Canarian residents in Cuba, where some 65,000 live, while in Venezuela, which is home to 55,000, medical aid has doubled to reach 6,500 beneficiaries.
the big island
The visit of the regional president to the South American country concluded with a cultural activity, in which 23 entities presented dances and recitals to “celebrate the Canarian identity in this which is still the eighth island,” the general producer of the meeting, Jesús Martínez, told EFE.
“We canaries who are on this shore are going to meet,” said the man, who positively appreciated the presence of Torres in the Hispanic Center of Villa de Cura, in the state of Aragua (north), where he came for the first time to a president of the island government.
The Canarian politician, who received plaques of recognition from the center’s board of directors and from all cultural groups, thanked him for the affection received, both in Venezuela and in Cuba.
«We have felt at home (…) they have treated us like they did. Anywhere in the Canary Islands we would be in the same circumstances,” Torres said after remarking the “identical language” and the “similar gastronomy” on both sides of the Atlantic.
He highlighted the “great effort” made by the Spanish-Venezuelan canaries to keep traditions alive and congratulated each of the groups for their performances.
all the help possible
Also this Saturday, the president laid the first stone of a park that will be built inside the Casa Hogar of the “Fundación Canaria Nuestra Señora de las Nieves”, also in Aragua, as a place of recreation for the elderly who reside there, including 20 of Canarian origin.
It is “a park so that they can also enjoy (…) the meeting between them (…) it is an example of what we have to do,” he said, after recalling that thousands of Canarians arrived in Venezuela in the last 80 years in search of opportunities , for which, he considered, it is time to “return what they gave us so much.” EFE
