Las Palmas de Gran Canaria (EFE).- The PSOE candidate for mayor of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Carolina Darias, stressed this Tuesday, before meeting with CEAR officials, that “those who come from abroad also contribute to making this city a “cosmopolitan and inclusive city where everyone fits”.
Before meeting with the coordinator of the Spanish Commission for Aid to Refugees (CEAR) in the Canary Islands, Juan Carlos Lorenzo, Darias expressed his willingness to continue increasing economic collaboration with this NGO from the City Council, with which he has been associated for some time for the different political responsibilities he has had.
“We want to continue working side by side with them, generating synergies and complicity to care for the city’s migrant population,” he said.
Carolina Darias has ruled that “migration is here to stay” and has recalled that “migratory movements were an essential part of our lives.”
For the candidate, it is important “to continue arbitrating the improvement of their lives in origin, to prevent them from moving in the conditions in which they do so.”
Once here, he continued, “we need to respond to those who come from abroad, who are also going to contribute to making Las Palmas de Gran Canaria the cosmopolitan and inclusive city we want, where we all fit”.
Lorenzo has sent the socialist candidate a series of proposals that CEAR intends to transfer to all aspirants for a government position in the upcoming 28M elections.
These are proposals related to “integration and inclusion policies that seek to transcend what can be a situation of reception of migrants or refugees to a true policy of working on intercultural coexistence”, he explained.
For this, the NGO considers it essential to “facilitate administrative procedures, debureaucratize administrations to facilitate access to rights.”
“That is the basis of the proposals that we launch to the different options that have the aspiration to exercise government policies from 28M”, he asserted.
The coordinator of CEAR Canarias has admitted that the national rate of 16% that registers the recognition of requests for international protection that are formulated “is reproduced” on the islands, where they are not only formulated by “asylum seekers, who are the majority, especially from Venezuela, Colombia and Cuba, but there are many people of African origin, from Mali, the Ivory Coast or Guinea Conakry, who are acquiring a level of protection of almost one hundred percent”.
“We have many young people, many of them from minors, who are acquiring protection and see that they can develop a life project among us and it is an interesting challenge. For us it is transformative and inspiring to know that there are new young people who it can contribute to the sustainability of our welfare system”, he celebrated.
In the opinion of Juan Carlos Lorenzo, we must work on public policies related to the access of this group to public resources such as housing.
It is about, he said, “seeing how we can help migrants, who are not only those who arrive, but those who live among us, refugees who have been here for years, to gain access in a more transparent and guaranteed way to rights that citizens have”.
In his opinion, “it is complicated and it is not intended to differentiate by origin, but it is true that when we talk about groups of special vulnerability we must also understand that we have to have specialized policies to reach a position of equity”. EFE