Muelas de los Caballeros (Zamora) (EFE) The couple’s five children are the only daily users of the playground.
The Municipality of Muelas de los Caballeros, in the area of Sanabria and La Carballeda, in the northwest of the province of Zamora, ceded the old veterinarian’s house to this Ukrainian family and in exchange they have recovered the life of swings and slides.
In addition, for the next academic year, it is possible that the town school will reopen, although for this the municipality is now looking for a second family with children that wants to settle in the town.
Like many other stories written after fleeing the war in Ukraine, that of Sergi, Inna and their five children, who have difficulties speaking Spanish, has the component of sadness and heartbreak from the war and their loved ones. who have fallen by the wayside, but for the municipality that welcomes them represents a hope for the future as for many others in emptied Spain.
The mayor of Muelas de los Caballeros, Fermín Fernández, acknowledges to EFE that beyond the solidarity component that involved rehabilitating municipal housing, furnishing it and collecting money to offer clothing and food to the Ukrainian family in its first weeks, his arrival has meant a halo of life for a town that lacked children.
a dead town
“A town without children is a dead town, five children have come and they have given joy to a town that was almost lifeless,” says the head of the municipal authority while doing the math for the reopening of the school.
One of the children is already going to high school in Puebla de Sanabria, but the other four, in Infant and Primary, would allow the reopening of the old school, which is equipped for this purpose and with that number of students it could function again more than a decade after its opening. closing.
For this, it would be necessary to guarantee that there are also enough students to keep it open for the following courses and for this reason the Muelas de los Caballeros City Council is now looking for a second family with children to settle in the municipality.
Employment is not lacking
As a hook, the mayor argues that work is not lacking, since in the municipality there are three construction companies, others for reforestation and a partridge farm that periodically demand personnel.
Fermín Fernández reiterates that the important thing is that Muelas de los Caballeros has “children and life if not the towns die” and gives as an example the case of two districts of this town hall in which in winter only six people remain in one of them and a dozen in the other.
Another family with ten children
It is not the only town in the area that has welcomed Ukrainian families fleeing the war and another exceptional case has been that of the family that has settled in Robleda with their ten children and who are related to the family settled in Muelas de The Knights.
The mayor of this municipality, Francisco Rodríguez, explains to EFE that although the parents are not very sociable because they still have difficulties with the language, the children have integrated very well and have doubled the child population of that town of a hundred inhabitants after the house that one of their neighbors has given them.
The father and the eldest of the brothers work in a construction company in the area, while two of the children go to high school in Puebla de Sanabria and the other seven to the school in El Puente.
In this case, although the town’s Infant and Primary classroom could only be reopened with the Ukrainian children, Francisco Rodríguez does not even consider it because the school they attend is only five kilometers away, the old school is now the headquarters of an association of retirees and the family’s stay is provisional, a provisionality motivated by a war that has been going on for a year now. EFE
