Passion fruit yesterday awarded the citizen merit diploma to Carmen Luisa González Domínguez and Violeta Aznar Artigas, for their teaching work in the municipality for more than three decades. Both leave behind a trail highly valued by the educative communitywhich began in the mid-1980s, before the migratory boom, “when San Isidro only had the Santa Cruz avenue paved and we went to the center by sidewalks because the cars practically did not arrive.”
As this newspaper published in a report on the occasion of her retirement, Carmen Luisa, a professor at the Magallanes Institute since it was built 29 years ago “in the middle of nowhere” and in full implementation of the Logse, led the first multicultural project of the South, called Babylon, due to the rise of the immigrant population that began to arrive in droves to the region. Based on workshops and conferences, awareness began to be raised about integration and coexistence in the classroom. “It was a new phenomenon and there were no projects in the Ministry that served as a reference. We had to do the enrollment forms in several languages and when a problem arose between students, we would meet with the families and I would let them have my office so that they could resolve their differences. The formula worked. Everyone was assuming that together we enriched cultural, recreational and even gastronomic knowledge”.
Violeta arrived from Zaragoza at the age of 25 after passing some oppositions. After jumping from center to center during the first courses, she has not moved from the Abona School for the last three decades, which she has directed since 2005. Her first impression was not exactly positive. “When I arrived there were no houses around and the school wasn’t even fenced off, there was only the main building,” she recalls.
He recognizes that the integration of different cultures was not an easy task. “Multiculturalism was a bit big for us, accustomed as we were to dealing with families from Tenerife and La Gomera. We were nine teachers and a little over 100 students, and suddenly everything began to fill up and we had to ask the City Council to divide the largest classrooms in half. Everything was quite accelerated because there were no forecasts that so many people would come. He does not forget that at the beginning “there were families who did not understand that the children who came from outside passed before the dining places. Some problems arose there, but little by little we all adapted”.
The mayor, José Domingo Regalado, highlighted the work for the community of both teachers, who since yesterday have been part of the list of illustrious children of the Villa. “This act is nothing more than an act of justice and formal and institutional recognition of Granada society towards two exceptional women. They leave a legacy of gratitude, admiration and respect in the hearts of the people of Granada”, he argued.
Violeta Aznar thanked the City Council for giving value to her work and stated that “it was a great pleasure to work for thirty years at CEIP Abona”, while Carmen Julia González said she felt very lucky and remembered her former students, ” who today continue to remember us fondly and thank us,” he said.
