These are not easy days for anyone. However, perhaps for this very reason, when social distancing has become a prescription that we have to assume to take care of ourselves and, above all, to take care of those who are by our side, the things that bring us closer are shown in a different way. With a value that surely has always been there, but that perhaps we did not perceive precisely because the everyday insisted on hiding it.
The Obra Social La Milagrosa, which manages the dining room on Calle de La Noria, in the Tenerife capital, has had a choir for a little over a year, a unique musical project in which some of the users of this resource participate. Women and men without economic means, with their biographies, their problems, their needs and their dreams, who go there to feed themselves. Before the coronavirus, for lunch and dinner, and now, in the midst of the restrictions imposed by COVID-19, to collect food.
And although that alone would be a lot, the work carried out in the soup kitchen, directed by Sr. María del Carmen Hernández, is much broader and more complex. It has to do with aspects such as self-esteem, integration, the fight against loneliness and second, third or tenth chances. In short, with hope.
“Music is therapeutic and brings a sense of belonging to the community, of normalization,” explains Belén Peyró, social worker from the La Milagrosa dining room, who details that the profiles of those who participate in this project correspond to homeless people, with functional diversity , elderly, drug addicts or with mental health problems. As is to be expected, in many cases several of these circumstances occur in the same participant.
INTEGRATION
“The idea has been to create a folkloric group made up of people in situations of vulnerability, of social exclusion, and that, through this learning, changes take place”, adds Peyró. “But not only changes in them – he points out – but also in the rest of the community, so that they are perceived as the citizens that they are. In recent times, social prejudices towards homeless people have become much more evident, and by this I mean both those who live on the streets and those who sleep in patera houses or are squatters ”.
Belén Peyró: “Music is therapeutic and gives them a feeling of belonging to the community”
For this reason, Belén Peyró emphasizes that the choir, an idea of Sister María del Carmen, wants to be a music group, without adding any kind of label that contributes to establishing that frequent, inappropriate and, above all, unfair, differentiation between we and them.
“I feel very good working with them. Personally, it is a rewarding job: being able to help them get ahead, get a smile from people who have had a very bad time in life, is the best part of my job, ”says Filiberto López, monitor and director of this experience. “Here there are no differences of any kind, we are all a pineapple,” he emphasizes, while explaining that the health crisis of COVID-19 has led him to distribute the musicians and singers in groups that rehearse on different days.
The trials are held outdoors and in small groups in the face of a pandemic. / Sergio Mendez
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COOPERATION
“When someone arrives, the first thing I ask them is if they want to sing or learn to play an instrument. If, for example, you tell me that you like the guitar or timple, we start with the chords, with the rhythm… Some find it more difficult and others less. The one who knows the most helps the newcomer, so that little by little everyone moves forward ”.
Both Belén Peyró and Filiberto López agree on the importance of showing their music to the public for the members of this project. Something that in the current circumstances is very complicated. However, if the coronavirus allows it, the choir of the Obra Social La Milagrosa will perform the Christmas carols that they have prepared for this Christmas in the church of La Concepción or abroad, even in small groups.
Filiberto López: “Helping them to get ahead, making people who have had a very bad time in life smile, is the best thing about my job”
“On occasions, one of them comes to me through tears to show their gratitude for participating in this group, for not feeling alone, for having a new goal in life and being able to disconnect from their problems,” says López. “Initiatives like this one, or like the workshops and courses taught in the dining room, should be more frequent and exist in other places: people need them,” he adds.
LA CAIXA AND CAJACANARIAS FOUNDATIONS
As Belén Peyró explains, the choir’s project was launched in October 2019, thanks to a 10,000-euro grant from the La Caixa and CajaCanarias foundations, which allows part of their budget to be covered. The pandemic forced the activity to cease, which resumed last June. The rehearsals have now been carried out outdoors, on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays, in small groups of a maximum of six people.
DIGITAL LITERACY, HYGIENE IN TIMES OF COVID, FOOD …
Obra Social La Milagrosa, working in a network with the La Casa Verde project, of the NGO Nuevo Futuro, has obtained the support of the regional government for social inclusion, education and hygiene projects. The center develops digital literacy workshops, “something fundamental for social and labor insertion,” says Peyró; the so-called Eat with your heart, with which users buy food in certain stalls of the Our Lady of Africa Market, and of education and hygiene in times of COVID. “Just the fact of going to the hairdresser, which they could not afford, supposes a notable reinforcement of self-esteem, of the perception of their own image”
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