DIARIO DEL HUILA, VERY PERSONAL
By: Rolando Monje Gómez
Photos: Tatiana Ramírez
“When I started studying at the Los Libertadores University Foundation in Bogotá, I had to go to the Avianca building to claim parcels and I would pass in front of the Banco de la República facilities that was next door, only separated by the Santander Park. I said how wonderful and how lucky those who work in this Bank.
“At that time when I studied there was no internet and computers were not overcrowded so I had to go to the libraries, so I loved going to the ‘Luis Ángel Arango’ Library, because there I found things in an easier way and Obviously I knew that it belonged to the Bank, like the Gold Museum where several times, for study reasons, we had to visit museums or cultural centers, I was amazed at all that, without imagining that I could get to this place ”, as Martha recalls Lucía Monsalve Díaz, manager of the Cultural Agency of the Banco de la República in Neiva, her first contact with the institution with which she turns ten years old on October 3 and that at that time she saw as something impossible in her professional path.
Born into a very close family, where her father, Antonio Monsalve, an Antioqueño from Concepción, was an extremely strict person, who always loved his children, “we respected him a lot, he always taught us by example to be responsible, to be disciplined ”.
“My father, better known as Lolo, was very respectful, he was one of the first people in the department who worked with marble, his work is found in most of the altars in the department, he was highly valued for his work,” he recalls.
The mother was very dedicated to her children, very strict too, who taught them that they should never envy others. My mother, Marvy Díaz, was from Venadillo, Tolima, a woman very dedicated to her family, so that everything was fine and that was also an example, very much at home ”.
We are three brothers, I am the second and the only woman, so her father took great care of her.
Martha Lucía tells us that she did her studies, initially at the Divino Niño and later, the baccalaureate, at the INEM ‘Julián Motta Salas’, “proud little girl”, she says.
“It was a very beautiful time with my classmates, we enjoyed it a lot, I really enjoyed my school stage, no major things happened, not even in college because I tried to get ahead and get the title quickly. I graduated from La Libertadores as a social communicator and journalist, ”she says.
She remembers when she told her father that she was going to be a journalist and he told her: “but my dear, why are you going to study that, and when I’m going to see you presenting the news on television. He didn’t see a future for me, but that way of thinking drove me more to study that. “
She says that if her father lived, he would feel like the proudest man in the world, even if he did not present the news on television.
In Diario del Huila
Although he does not really know why he studied social communication, he does consider that it was the best thing for him at the time, but when he graduated he did not know how to start so he decided to return to Neiva.
“My father commented to Hernando González, who worked with the Duque family and that is how I entered the Diario del Huila, at the time when the newspaper changed its format and transformed its technology. That was in 96 when I entered the newspaper with a new generation of journalists, Delimiro Moreno’s pupils, ”Martha Lucía comments.
In this media, she was the editor of many pages: Social, Neiva, Regional and coordinated from the beginning the School Press project, which she has always considered a wonderful project. “It was very hard but we really enjoyed it, it was true journalism.”
Although it never crossed her mind to be in charge of the Bank, today as a manager she is proud of her work.
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Culture manager
He came to the Banco de la República as Cultural Chief and later participated in the managerial contest, with many people from all over the country, when he was in the shortlist he felt that he had already come far on that path, but he never imagined what he would have to walk in the next ten years.
He considers that his arrival at management added many aspects of his professional life that gave him a plus when it came to selection. “Perhaps what they saw in me was the knowledge I had of the region, because of the work I did in the Diario del Huila, a company that I love very much that gave me the opportunity to get to know the municipalities of the department, how we Huila and then move on to the UCC where I acquired a more academic knowledge of networking, where I learned to know what young people are like, how they are being trained, what they think and how these young people today are contributing to the region. I know the traditions of the region, its identity, all that essence that becomes heritage ”, he points out.
Martha Lucía Monsalve affirms that it is at the Banco de la República when she begins to truly know all this cultural issue and what it represents us. “Working with culture, motivating people to access services like the ones we offer here, where they can find everything they want to read, for all tastes and ages.”
“I enjoy working with the Bank to the fullest, I love it, very nice, because it allows us, from an institution like this, to be part of these inclusion processes, here we provide culture and knowledge.
“In these times of pandemic we have not stopped, we have realized that the public has turned to virtuality. The pandemic changed the landscape of how we should work ”, he says.
In the family Martha Lucía tells us that in addition to being the Manager, she is also a housewife and that she enjoys doing housework a lot, she has a very quiet life next to her husband José María ‘Chepe’ Falla and her son Juan David , without forgetting Mimi, everyone’s spoiled cat.
“I would like to be remembered as a sensitive person, as a human being who from different stages of his life gave something to people. People have been very generous to me, life has been very generous to me and I believe infinitely in God, I want people to remember me with affection ”, he affirms.
Finally, she says that later on she would like to be the librarian of a town library, because a lot can be done there, or coordinator, not rector, of a primary educational institution, “I would like to work with children.”
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