Las Palmas de Gran Canaria (EFE) search for a better life, a thank you that has been personalized in 20 institutions, groups and legal entities.
This is the first delivery of the Distinctions for Inclusion and Migration in the Canary Islands, an act chaired by Minister José Luis Escrivá, who explained that the idea of creating these awards arose from the need to thank the solidarity effort that During the last migratory crisis, which coincided with the covid-19 pandemic, all the institutions, NGOs, volunteers, companies and anonymous people who gave up and managed first reception spaces and also ensured the health of the people who arrived in boats and cayucos to the islands.
In this spirit, the Ministry of Inclusion, Social Security and Migrations has delivered this Monday diplomas and a print of the group of urban artists Boa Mistura, created in Madrid in 2001, to the City Council of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Salvamento Marítimo, Inditex, the Life Opportunities associations, Civil Protection Volunteers of the El Golfo Valley (El Hierro) and Proemaid firefighters, as well as the Modern Christian Mission.
These were institutions and groups that, ceding spaces “in the worst humanitarian crisis in the country”, saving lives at sea, providing clothing to those who arrived with nothing, giving them shelter and ensuring their physical integrity and well-being contributed to fostering the best reception. possible to those who survived the trip from Africa, he remarked.
Together with them, Migrations has also recognized the work carried out by Pino González, from the health area of Gran Canaria; Sandra Celis, responsible for the one in Fuerteventura; and Noelia Umpiérrez, Bernardo García and Janet Pérez, also heads of the Canary Islands Health Service on other islands, such as Lanzarote.
The businessman Domingo Espino, who, faced with the zero tourism that emptied the Canary Islands of visitors, decided to give up his hotel to accommodate migrants; the regional head of migrations of the Red Cross, José Antonio Rodríguez Verona; the director of the Canarias 50 camp, Enrique Suárez; Maite Bueno, head of the NGO Accem in Las Raíces, the largest reception center for migrants in the Canary Islands; or the one from the same entity in Las Canteras, Jairo Arcesio, have been other winners.
These diplomas have also appreciated the dedication provided by Atabbe Maré, head of a shared management center; Itahisa Sosa, from the Bankia reception center in El Sebadal; Gerardo Santana, a Red Cross volunteer who developed intense work days at the Arguineguín pier, where he supported migrants and volunteers, and María Afonso, who accompanied him on the same tasks.
On behalf of the winners, a representative of the Civil Protection volunteers from El Valle de El Golfo stated that the trip that these people made through the Canary Islands route “never wanted it and was forced by penalties that, not even with much imagination , we are capable of imagining”, which is why he has assured that he will never forget “the looks of gratitude from those who were saved from the sea”.
“The world is also made of big hearts. If we put a little more heart, this world would be much better ”, she has stated.
The Minister of Migration, José Luis Escrivá, has considered that the Canary Islands Plan has made it possible to consolidate in the Islands “a more modern and dignified reception system” and has estimated that the winners “represent solidarity very well with something as tremendous as dealing with such harsh realities.
Escrivá has stressed that his department had to start “almost from scratch” to create an infrastructure that would allow a first reception in conditions to those who arrived in the Canary Islands in the midst of a pandemic, since the pre-existing one was abandoned by the previous Government and was unusable , to which it has added a 100 million aid to the Canary Islands Executive to facilitate its guardianship of unaccompanied minors.
The minister has informed that next week the reform of the León School, in Las Palma de Gran Canaria, will be completed, as well as the works of the mothers’ unit that will operate in Tenerife, and has announced that Migration is working with the Spanish Olympic Committee so that All the first reception centers in the Canary Islands have top-level sports infrastructures so that they can be used, both by their users and by the residents of the neighborhoods where they are located, understanding that this is a way of facilitating integration.
The Canarian President, Ángel Víctor Torres, has thanked Escrivá for this fair, deserved and festive act” in which, in his opinion, recognition has been made “to the true Canary Islands, the one that throws itself into the sea to help those who come in a boat, the one that takes care of them on a pier or gives them food” when someone decides to put them in a bus and leave them in the Plaza de La Feria, he recalled, referring to the mayoress of Mogán, Onalia Bueno.