I’m always grateful to God for every year we can work at Portiño trying to help to our children to go steps forward in their life. In the previous years this work was difficult because the lack of volunteers, so we maintanied the project in precarious conditions.

But luckily this year we gathered a great group again. Almudena returned from Barcelona and new youngs volunteers came into the group too. So we could work harder and we did more parties and extra activities carrying the children to meet the world outside Portiño

Almudena, Laura, Inés, Lucía, Ariana and Ismael, thanks to you for this maravellous year

Two days ago, Nemesio Fernandez Villa died at the age of 79. It was a sad new for Agarimo, the boys town he founded in Arteixo, near Coruña. But it was a very, very sad new for the Portiño, where he worked decades and founded the school where my group of volunteers currently teach to the children.

I would like to believe we do the 1/1000 part of the work he do.

In memorian, Father Villa,1929-2008

Today I wasn’t able to teach a child (12 years old) how to draw the altitude of a triangle. She could learn it. But she didn’t want do it. She preferred going away to talk with her friends about boys

Today I lived one of the best days since two years ago at Portiño. The school was in calm. We have a lot of children to work, but we were enough volunteers to dedicate much time to everybody. We learned, we played. Without shouts and runs. Without stress

It seems the OCV’s informative campaign had good results. I delayed two weeks to begin the activities waiting for new volunteers. Last week was the first time we went to Portiño. The group was formed with five new volunteers: Ariana, Laura, Lucía, Yanmei Li and Ismael , and me, and this week we received one more, Inés, and, very important, a veteran one, Almudena. Meanwhile, we wait for another veterans: Alberto, who is still in Venezuela in a cooperation project, and Silvia, improving her English in Malta.

These first two sessions have been a bit madness. The new people must adapt to the project. The children are very cheerful with the new people, so they are more mischievous than the usual . We have logistics problems: most of volunteers must take a bus to the other side of the city, then we must walk around 1.5 Km without sidewalks nor shelter under the rain. It is not important. We will be a great group with great new ideas to work, that’s the important thing actually

Last Monday the new year began in my Civil Engineers School. There were some speeches for the beginners by professors to explain them how hard fun is this degree.

And it was a chance to try to get new volunteers to work in the Cooperation and Volunteering Office in the University. So we insert an speech about it. Miriam Barreiro, who works in the Office and is volunteer in a hospital too, explained them our structure and projects. By my side I talked about the social liability of the Civil Engineering, and how important is to know and work in the ‘human scale’ besides lines and numbers.

I hope this information campaign all around the University had the effect of stop dropping the number of volunteers. I want to believe the new generations are less selfish as they seem.

There is too much time I don’t write about the Portiño children project. The last months were intense. Yes, we still have an important lack of resources-human resources, and it seems it won’t improve wth the new generations of university students. But fortunately we ended the course with a nice group of volunteers that overcomed difficulties and maintained the project up. We went on helping the children with their educational problems, and we gave lot of fun for them, even we took them to a nice place in the city of Betanzos. In “El pasatiempo” there are game zones that Coruña council doesn’t create for our children. And as every year, the next month we will take them to an aquatic park.

So, there are reasons for a celebration. Tonight, guiness at Matthew’s, and crêpes and icecream at Le Petit Bretagne. Silvia, Tamara, Alberto, thank you folks for this shared time!!

Este segundo comentario sobre las Elecciones Municipales se va a referir a la capital. Desde luego, no puedo hablar a fondo de la totalidad de Coruña como ciudad, porque no vivo en ella, aunque sí paso mucho tiempo.
De esas muchas horas que paso cada semana, de las más interesantes son en las que participo en el proyecto de apoyo escolar que la Oficina de Cooperación y Voluntariado de la UDC tiene en el Portiño. Llevo ya cinco años en ese proyecto, y le tengo mucho cariño a las gentes de ese barrio humilde, pero ejemplar.

Las clases y los juegos que compartimos con los niños los realizamos en lo que era el antiguo colegio del Portiño. Este colegio es propiedad municipal. Por lo tanto, el Ayuntamiento es responsable de su mantenimiento. Pues bien, hace ya demasiado tiempo que el ayuntamiento dejó sus responsabilidades. Y así, desde hace tres años venimos reclamando que se haga una reparación de las tuberías de desagüe, ya que son tan antiguas que acusan algo más que pérdidas. No podemos usar el agua corriente, por lo tanto. De los aseos, ¿para que hablar? desde que llegué nunca funcionaron. Las condiciones higiénicas son lamentables, y ello nos impide, entre otras cosas, ayudar en la eduación de hábitos de higiene de los niños.

La excusa que tienen para mantener el colegio en tales condiciones es que en no demasiado tiempo será derribado como todo el barrio, para dar paso a la Tercera Ronda de la ciudad. La misma excusa, supongo, en la que se escudan para que, a pesar de que el año pasado los puse verdes en público (en las Jornadas sobre Chabolismo e Infravivienda que se celebraron en la Facultad de Sociología) y de frente (estaba presente la técnico social del Ayuntamiento Regla Dávila), los niños sigan sin una zona de juegos. Unos columpios no deben costar más de 300 euros. Muchísimo menos de lo que ha costado la arielita (ascensor-trampa del Monte San Pedro). Uno, dos, tres años pueden significar bien poco en la vida de un adulto, pero son una eternidad en la vida de un niño. No pueden seguir esperando, por tanto, a que se acabe la próxima obra faraónica de los socialistas+nacionalistas en la ciudad donde nadie es forastero pero en la que unos son más ciudadanos que otros.

The days after DUDESconf I still had some work related with GPUL. On Monday, Emilio and me went to Radio Intereconomía to an interview about free software at the radio show “El Oasis”. Emilio was a bit nervous but it finally it was easier than he thought. He even tried to sign the visitors book with his digital fingerprint (but he forgot the ticket at home)

And on Tuesday I gave an speech in my Civil Engineers School.It was a rare situation, it was my first speech in my School. I was invited by Engineers Without Borders-Galicia. I tried to transmit the hacker spirit in the history and applied to the software, art and knowledgement. I talked about the runnning project that Emilio and me have in the Portiño to build a server-thin clients system for the child with old computers. I wish they eat the red pill

A gang child in the street in Río de Janeiro
A child armed with AK-47 in Kivu
A miner child in Potosí
A child in a brothel in Phnom Penh
An abandouned child in an lost orphanage in China
A sick of malaria child in Kisangani
An organ-bank child in East Europe
An amputated child in Freetown

It’s Xmas for them too. It’s up to us if they realise.

On Tuesday we have the Christmas party in Portiño. Last year we couldn’t celebrate this because the lack of volunteers, but this quarter two new volunteers, Tamara and Carolina, joined to Iria, who began with me in the group, and Alberto, who began last year. Moreover, Ana, the former coordinator came to help us in this time, and, of course, to meet again with children. It was a pleasant afternoon in wich we played, danced and eat sandwitches and candies. Of course, we all ended sticky

These first months of the course were nice, but we have a lot of work to improve. We need more help. New volunteers, please!

I read in the Christian Cultural Movement web (es) that a week ago Julián Gómez del Castillo has dead.

Julián was a christian militant worker with a great history in fighting for workers rights. He was friend of Guillermo Rovirosa, they both built a strong HOAC (Hermandad Obrera de Acción Católica, Catholic Action Workers Fraternity) along the General Franco’s dictatorship in Spain, and he founded the ZYX publishing to be opposed to the dictatorship and to be in the side of the low classes.

He carried on the fight to bring God’s Justice through solidarity until his dead. His life is a model to we secular people in this crisis age in Catholicism.

CARIDAD POLÍTICA.

Por Julián Gómez del Castillo,militante cristiano. Del grupo fundador de la HOAC, ZYX y el Movimiento Cultural Cristiano. Revista Id y Evangelizad, 2006-11-09

0.- INTRODUCCIÓN

Muchas veces los cristianos hablamos de las realidades socioecónomicas y políticas olvidando la CARIDAD POLÍTICA.

Un buen plan de formación debe descansar en la convicción de que no hay nada más importante para los hombres y mujeres cristianos que el intento de que veamos, juzguemos y actuemos desde la Fe. Lo característico nuestro debe ser Ver la realidad desde la fe. No debe bastarle al militante la acción en el mundo. Es evidente que los militantes estamos hechos para la acción en el mundo, pero la acción en el mundo desde la fe. Y en eso van a estar todas las posibilidades de permanencia en la vida militante. Es evidente que cuando España era hace cincuenta años, por sus condiciones de vida, igual que hoy el Tercer Mundo, el mismo espectáculo de la miseria le revolvía a uno las tripas y le llevaba a la acción. En el mundo en que vivimos, los hombres sin fe nos testimonian que hay razón para la lucha. Nuestros hermanos sin fe no tienen razones para luchar. Ya no hay acción militante. De hecho, cuando hacen algo que les implica seriamente su vida lo hacen cobrando. Es un hecho que está ahí. Se cumple aquello de A. Camus: “O conseguimos el santo sin Dios o el ateísmo es una estupidez”. Ese es el desafío práctico, vital, de nuestro tiempo. (more…)

Last tuesday was the first class day in Portiño. It was a shiny day, and children (around fourty) were so naughty that I’ve never saw in four years I’m in the project, I think.

Good new: there is a new volunteer in the group, she seems smart and mature, and I hope she will come again next week, she didn’t seem scared ;-). Bad new: three volunteers left from last course because they are not in Coruña, so we are four volunteers. Good new: Ramonín (the president of the neighbourgs) still remains as president despite of he wanted to leave. Ramonín is a very important help in our daily work.

Bad news: some girls left the studies when they are thirdteen. Spanish government pushed thirdteen child into the high schools in a fucking change of scheme some years ago, so their families have the perfect excuse to retire the children from the studies two years before. Good news: some new children came, and they seem will to learn. They worked all evening and they asked me for some books from the library.

Final course party in Portiño. Long year, hard moments, lack of volunteers, changes.

But we had lots of good moments too, like today. We ate sandwitches and candys, we danced, we played in the square… We usually have three parties in a year, but we had concentrated all in one because difficulties.

Now, holidays to get energy to the next year

Don’t have time to think where I am and what I’m going to do. The number of children increased again in these weeks, but the number of volunteers is very low. And, it’s worst, I’m their leader because I’m the veteran :-/ God help us…

From Wednesday to Friday I have been in the “I Xornadas sobre Infravivenda e Chabolismo” (I conference about Infrahousing and Shanty Town) at the Sociology Faculty.

We could hear different points of view about the problem, and different actions to eradicate the marginality around our cities. Sociologists, architects, urbanists, medicine doctors, non-profit organisations, volunteers (yes, I took part too), teachers, politicians and, finally, the main actors: Gipsy representatives of several settlements in La Coruña city.

Furthermore the speech of Peñamoa, Las Rañas and Portiño women and men, I think the most interesting speech was the project of the city of Avilés, where with almost 20 years of work and eight euro millions, they integrated around 140 families taking labour, education, housing and social actions. They agreed with all local political and social forces, so they could work with calm. We can read the analyisis of the operation in the book “Erradicación del chabolismo e integración social de los gitanos en Aviles” by E. Agulló Tomás, Jorge Cabo Pérez (the speecher in Conference), M. Capa Tixeira, J. Rodríguez Suarez and C. Sánchez Velasco. This book was published by Oviedo University and Avilés Council.

Avilés project was included in Best Practices database. Another interesting project in the same sucess list was developed in Extremadura, where they took action especially in labour problems.

Very interesting for me was the speech of Delfina Núñez and Yolanda Zapata, two teachers of Social Services in Culleredo Council. They work in a project with children, and, part of the project is similar to our (amateur) work in Portiño. Maybe we will have professional help

And the worst of Conference: politicians. Mar Barcón, Socialist councillor in La Coruña, didn’t admit the fact they act against infrahouse only when there is urban pressure, and raged against the population of the settlements. Meanwhile, Encarna Otero, Galician nationalist parliament representative and member of the Galicia Government, promised they will improve (and said no more). I ask for gaming furniture to the children and sports court to the Portiño, and salubrious conditions in the School where we teach to the children, but they skirted the issue (and Regla Dávila, from Social Service of Council, laughed when I suggested we could organise an alcohol feast in the street to buy swings :-P).

I don’t know if it was my better day at Portiño. Four years ago I wouldn’t imagine a day like today. I went alone to give the class to the children.

And I survived, and the children, and pencils and rubbers too :-).

Today was my first day at Portiño as coordinator between the volunteers and the Office. It happpened because the former coordinator, Ana, began to study a master, so she left the group.

It’s no good. I’m the third coordinator since October. In fact, it’s only an symbolic job. But it’s not a good signal that I’m the only veteran with stable rythm of work.

Only Belén (my host neighbourgh) and me went with children today. In the golden years of the group we were six to eight volunteers every session. Because our conditions, we move in two groups with random, low number of volunteers. After half hour in chaos, we desisted

Since before I began to teach to my children in Portiño, every year volunteers planned a party with parents and children, before Christmas.

This year we hadn’t enogh volunteers, so there was no party

I had funny time today. After Maths and Grammar, children of Portiño worked for first time in the computation classroom we assembled with old PC’s of my School.What a pity, I have not photo camera