SANTA CRUZ DE TENERIFE, March 18 (EUROPA PRESS) –
The professor, writer and researcher Agapito de Cruz Franco will kick off the big days of the Major Festivals of La Orotava with the reading of the proclamation, which this year will take place on Tuesday June 13 in the Noble Hall of the House Consistorial.
Although he was born in Belver de los Montes de Zamora in 1953, he has lived in the Villa for 44 years, where he has integrated perfectly. Thus, in June of last year he was named Villero de Honor, a proposal unanimously approved in plenary session by the groups that make up the municipal Corporation, for his teaching, social, cultural and political career in the municipality.
His work as a teacher has been carried out in La Orotava, at the Ramón y Cajal School during the 1980s where he was director of this center between 1983 and 1986. Later he taught classes at the El Médano school in Granadilla de Abona and in the IES San Juan de la Rambla, to return again, in 2000 to the Villa, and at this time, to the IES La Orotava-Manuel González Pérez, as a language teacher where, although already retired, he continues his educational work collaborating, together with the students in the organization of the school radio, Radio Kiosko, inaugurated in 2014.
Agapito de la Cruz is involved with the ecology of the Islands within the Canarian Ecologist Movement and, mainly, from the groups: ‘Nature and Society’ of La Orotava and from ‘EI Tagoror Ecologist Alternativo’ (TEA) that would lead the fight against polluting energy models and that would be signified on the occasion of the citizen movement: ‘The whole island is Vilaflor’, of which he was its spokesman. One of his characteristics was always the union of environmentalism and education in experiences outside the classroom such as ‘Nature and Society’ itself or the ‘Green Teams’, boys and girls who acted throughout the island in defense of nature.
In politics he was a member of the ‘Los Verdes’ party and a councilor for IPO-Los Verdes in the Town Hall of Villa de La Orotava. Together with Mercedes Pérez Schwartz -former senator and granddaughter of the last Republican mayor of Santa Cruz de Tenerife, who would be assassinated in the Civil War- and other people, he founded the Association for the Recovery of the Historical Memory of Tenerife, of which he was a member. his secretary.
His restless and active character makes him participate in different activities in the municipality such as the coordination of the large group of carpet makers of Corpus Christi de San Juan. In the same way it is common in the carpet that, together with the Casa Monteverde, is made by the IES La Orotava-Manuel González Pérez on the occasion of the Infra-octave of Corpus Christi. He has also been a godfather in the act of homage to the retired teachers of the municipality, which is carried out every year by the City Council.
As for his activity with the world of radio, he began in gatherings or magazines of different island stations. Once he retired, he immersed himself in promoting school radio, he began by encouraging and helping the students and teachers of the IES La Orotava-Manuel González Pérez, founding Radio Kiosko together with his students, and which already has a long history of ten years. He has also collaborated in the creation of new school radios in the centers of the Villa through the ‘APRENDE Cultural Association’, as well as in the creation of the youth radio of the Casa de la Juventud de La Orotava ‘La Voz Joven’, a station open to the youth world; Made by and for young people.
On the other hand, his vital need to write has made him a writer who has several books behind him, some of them closely related to La Orotava. He began with poetry, to later derive criticism, the article and the essay mainly. Up to now, he has published: ‘Entre los Médanos’ (year 2000), ‘Cubas’ (year 2002), ‘Canarias en Clave de(l) sol ‘(year 2011) with Libreando Ediciones, ‘La Orotava, Currículum Vitae’ ( year 2013) La Orotava City Council Edition, ‘Bajo los adoquines’ (year 2013) by IDEA Editions and Aguere Editions, ‘Del ayer y otros viajes’ (year 2013), Catalonia, Catalunya Catalonha’ (year 2014) and ‘Belver, curriculum vitae’ (year 2022). In addition to other minor editions. Currently other publications are immersed that will soon see the light.
