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Seville has the disgrace of leading the ranking of the poorest neighborhoods in Spain, with three of the top four at the top. The most depressed of all is the South Polygon, according to a study carried out by Urban Audit for the National Institute of Statistics. To the low income of its neighbors, who receive an average of 5,112 euros per year (426 euros per month or 14 euros per day), another drama is added: the truancy, which since the beginning of the course has been multiplied by the Covid. 70 percent of Kindergarten, Primary and Secondary students do not go to class, which further highlights the dark future that looms over Polígono Sur.
Therefore, the brotherhood of the Gypsies, from the hand of Cayetano Martínez de Irujo, has launched a draft to promote schooling of these students and accompany the families. The corporation has baptized this social work with the name of Cayetana, the Duchess of Alba, who did so much to enhance a brotherhood that since its foundation has fought to avoid social exclusion. «I remember when I was a child how Los Gitanos kept their belongings in the Palacio de las Dueñas, because they didn’t even have a brotherhood house. From there to see that the brotherhood has become one of the most important in the world, with the Virgin crowned, with a large temple owned, the new dependencies … and that all that greatness has acquired it with my mother’s contributionI think that should now be transmitted to society with the name of Cayetana ». This is how the Duke of Arjona and Count Salvatierra explain why this project was born in December 2019 and is already working on the Polígono Sur “Without distinction, without colors and without ethnicities”. The intention, according to what Cayetano Martínez de Irujo tells ABC, is “that the brotherhood unite with the name of my mother to help that the children have a training, take off the ancestral habits and develop with dignity ».
The penultimate son of the Duchess of Alba has the illusion of to create a foundation with the name of Cayetana together with the brotherhood to support the project and expand the resources to work for the integration and future of the Polígono Sur. «I have joined the brotherhood project, as a lifelong brother, as my mother’s son and as a representative of the House of Alba, ”says Cayetano Martínez de Irujo, who encourages his brothers to join the future foundation: “People close to her have the door open, all my brothers and the current Duke of Alba.”
The embryo of the project
The Cayetana project started at the end of 2019. The original idea was his own eldest brother from Los Gitanos, Jose Maria Flores, who wanted the corporation to have a symbolic social work in Polígono Sur, a neighborhood with a high population of gypsy ethnicity and where the brotherhood already worked since the carpentry workshop was created in times of Antonio Vargas. The governing board of Jose Moreno created an educational support project to alleviate the truancy in El Vacie and, following that line, the current older brother opted to continue promoting education in the most disadvantaged areas. «It occurred to me that the brotherhood would get into the South Polygon more deeply, in the sixteen public centers, to work with children at risk of social exclusion ”, José María Flores explains to ABC.
To promote the project, which was dedicated to Cayetana de Alba, the great benefactor of Los Gitanos in its recent history, they held meetings with the Sevilla University, with whom they signed an agreement in January 2020. However, the pandemic broke out and everything was paralyzed. «The idea is that, through Education Faculty of the Hispalense, are students who are studying there who provide this educational support, which also serves the project to obtain free credits », says the older brother.
The Cayetana project has a double slope. In addition to promoting schooling and supporting the students of the Polígono Sur so that they are adequately trained, it also serves to interrelate one’s parents of these children and adolescents, to make them share in the need they have to avoid school absenteeism. Also, those with basic needs, “we refer them to the brotherhood to serve them through the pantry », exposes José María Flores.
In this way, the corporation has two Social Work technicians who carry out these tasks both in El Vacie and in Polígono Sur, where the program is already being developed in the CEIP Andalucía.
On the other hand, the older brother makes it clear that, “when we talk about people in social exclusion, they are not just gypsies. The brotherhood does not make distinctions, it is inclusive, and only wants to help people who are at risk, to ensure that gypsies and non-gypsies coexist, as has happened in the more than 250 years of the corporation’s history ”.
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