ARO Doctor Cristóbal Gangoso Aragón needs help. The association of rehabilitated alcoholics of Huelva will stay on the street in a few months if he doesn’t get the necessary money to refurbish the premises he owns on the ground floor of Nuevo Colombino. The group is currently on loan in a space provided by Antonio Carbonell Rodríguez in the Zafra area that alternates when the activity schedule allows it with the Gota de Leche.
ARO was forced to leave its previous headquarters on Isaac Peral street due to the impossibility of holding its face-to-face sessions with the current health requirements or in the minimum conditions. It has large premises on the ground floor of Nuevo Colombino, paid for with its own funds. Now he needs to gather around 400,000 euros to undertake the works. It’s a race against time because you need it after the summer or you can see it on the street. The space where it is located is now for sale. As soon as the owner transfers it, he must abandon it. It has the project and awaits the building license imminently. You lack the money needed to complete the goal.
Its current premises, which was paid for with the fees of its partners and acquired through a collective mortgage in which its directors came to put their assets as collateral, is for sale to pay a part. The forecast is to obtain about 100,000 euros from the operation, the resources of the association are around 70,000 and about 125,000 are missing to face the entire project.
To get the money he needs, he launched a new charity initiative. ARO is looking for patrons for its chairs. The iconic image of therapies with attendees sitting down telling their experience one by one or sharing their concerns is the best showcase to get the help you need. There are 250 chairs at 500 euros each. The 125,000 euros that are missing. At the moment they have already found the affirmative response of nine solidarity firms: Náutica Carballar, Hermanos Núñez Distributions, Max Pesca, Pevaro Real Estate Management, Alumdur Technical Installations, Chiringuito Camarón Restaurant, Direct Casas and Cristalería Lorca. Those interested in supporting the cause of the association can contact the telephone numbers 959 25 17 48 and 638 422 261, good on the website www.aro.org the electronic mail [email protected]
There are open conversations and steps taken with many more waiting for answers. “Sitting in a chair within a self-help group is taking the first step in rebuilding people’s lives, it is the place where they dump all their problems and begin to rebuild their lives”, recalls ARO. So sponsoring a chair becomes “a symbol that goes much further than the financial contribution.” In doing so, the companies will be contributing “to the rehabilitation of many people and the reconstruction of their families”. The initiative is aimed primarily at companies, but is also open to individuals who wish to participate.
ARO currently has six offices distributed between the capital, the coast, the mountains and the county: Huelva, Punta Umbría, Cortegana, Valverde del Camino, Zalamea and Bonares. In total there are 18 support and help groups that today provide rehabilitation services to more than 700 families with addictions such as alcohol, cocaine and other psychodependencies. According to the entity’s president, Manuel Darriba, “every year around 300 new users enter ARO just at our headquarters in Huelva capital asking for help for all kinds of addictions.” If at first the Association was born for the recovery of people with problems with alcohol consumption, “currently what reaches us is polydrug use that begins with alcohol and continues to cocaine, being each time at a younger age in the one that debuts, in the case of young people, with the consumption of cannabis, ”says Darriba. Of these there are 400 in the capital. There is no clear identity trait. His attendees are of any age, gender or social status. Alcohol and addiction do not distinguish. The figures speak for themselves. 98% of the attendees, according to the data handled by the group, do not relapse into their addiction if they complete the cycle of therapy. His work is beyond doubt.
In the new facilities, whose dimensions are double of the previous onesseeks above all to serve the youngest by proposing healthy leisure alternatives at the time they take the first step to begin their rehabilitation: dance classes, theater, yoga, Zumba, etc, “activities that we had already been doing prior to part of the users due to the limitations of the old headquarters”, says Darriba.
The association covers its ordinary expenses with the 10 euro fee contributed by its members (those who do not have resources attend for free). The money makes it possible to face the fixed payments for electricity, water, cleaning, maintenance and administration. The monitors are all volunteers. ARO is the largest association in Spain and has been around for almost half a century.
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