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FUERTEVENTURA MAGAZINE hoy
QUIÉN ES QUIÉN EN LA ISLA / WHO’S WHO IN THE ISLAND? / WER IST WER AUF DER INSEL?
Victor Alonso – Cabildo’s Social Matters’ Councillor
“We have reached our goal: to maintain the level
of social services and attention to citizens”
FMHOY - Fuerteventura
After three years experience in this Council, which
he tends to call “the people’s Council”, we have come
once again to chat with Víctor Alonso, so that he could
tell us about his duties during this venture.
Changes have been positive, he seems younger and
full of vitality, unlike what tends to happen as years go
by for all of us and especially for politicians, who have
to cope with more work related stress than others.
Tell us about your experiences over the past few
years.
They are very varied because this position is very
controversial, and does not always suit everyone, but I
believe that we have reached our goals over this term:
to maintain the level of social services by improving
their infrastructures and attention to citizens.
We know that new services’ centres have been
inaugurated. Can you tell us more about those?
As for infrastructures, we managed to put in place
last year the Occupational Centre of the Southern
Area in Gran Tarajal, for people with light mental
disabilities where activities and workshops are organised
to make their integration in social and working
life easier. Regarding numbers, when the term
started, everyday ten of those people (young people
and adults) used to have to go from Morro Jable at 6
in the morning in order to get to Puerto del Rosario.
We are also currently completing a new centre in
Gran Tarajal that will welcome students from the local
that was given by Tuineje’s Ayuntamiento which is
being refurbished. We hope that it will be completed
in November or December... And the Psycho-social
Rehabilitation Centre of Puerto del Rosario, in the area
of Rosa Vila, has just started operating. As the Centre
North mancomunidad was closed, the Cabildo and
Canarian Government have taken those rehabilitation
centres under their wing. The centre’s staff consists
of teachers, a social worker and a psychiatrist. We are
also aiming at taking care of Gran Tarajal’s centre once
it will be completed if the centre-south mancomunidad
agrees, as this should depend from the Cabildo.
Another very important project is the Centro Insular
de Atención a la Discapacidad (disability attention centre)
of Puerto del Rosario where we are carrying out the
first phase of investment that represents 1.200.000 €.
This project houses the new Occupational Centre and
the new island’s Residence for deeply mentally disabled
people and a communal area that their families will be
able to use. This area will contain a swimming pool that
will also be available to families and associations.
How about the elderly people?
We have also carried out refurbishments and repairs
in the Elders’ Residence of Casillas del Ángel
representing an investment of over 1.500.000 €. It
was a spectacular change. On the other hand, the
Island’s Water Board carried out major work to create
a direct and easy entrance to the premises through
a roundabout and also for ambulances to get easy
access without having to come in through the village.
How did budget cut backs affect your Council?
Regarding attention to persons, the Cabildo increased
the budget by 1,65%. We are one of the
Councils that has not suffered from any cut backs,
but we have to take care of many services. There was
a major investment for drug-addictions although the
Canarian Government had to reduce the amount of
help they use to grant us. The Cabildo has carried
on maintaining services and we have increased the
number of staff in the south of the island and added
a psychologist to care for people concerned and their
families. We need a lab-technician for methadone
treatments in the southern area but the budget does
not allow us to cover this position.
Another priority is the Island’s Social Services’
Centre that currently attends around 12.000 people.
We have concentrated our efforts on this department
by making adjustments and we have moved part of
the staff of this module to the Popular University and
another part of the Council will be located next to the
Auditorium where the drug-addiction services and the
sexual information service will be situated. Although we
wish to create a space for this centre, the project will
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have to wait for financial resources to increase which
will allow us to increase and improve our service of
attention to citizens which is our most important task.
What projects are being carried out for people
with physical disabilities?
This year we are going to sign an agreement with
the Frater association, in order to care for all the
accessibility deficiencies of the island.
Frater is going to check out each municipality in
order to point out all the problems that a person with
disabilities could encounter from taking a taxi to getting
access to any public place. Furthermore, this initiative
will help ayuntamientos to be aware of the norms on
adequate accesses before giving out building licences.
Any other interesting news?
Yes, until recently residents of the island had to go to
the Cabildo in order to get an assessment of their level
of disability and the final decision used to take a year
before being given out. We have come to an agreement
with the Canarian Government in order to speed up this
process and we have now dedicated a psychologist and
a social worker for this task at the Cabildo. The administration
is taken care of by the Canarian Government.
Therefore the process will be almost immediate and
the final decisions will be handed out directly by the Office
of Attention to Citizens. We have also managed to get
the evaluation commissions to meet in Fuerteventura.
What are you most proud of?
I think this Council has achieved projects for each
collectivity which was one of my main goals when I first
started. This year we have managed to sign agreements
with over twenty eight associations and N.G.O., we
have maintained the amount of subventions, help and
assessments for associations such as Corazón y Vida,
Asociación Fuerteventura contra el Cáncer, Frater, Asomasamen,
Familia con trastornos de déficit de atención,
Victimas de Violencia de Genero, Hijas de la Caridad de
Corralejo, we have carried on providing tele-assistance
with the Red Cross and this year we also want to help
with Caritas, Adisfama, Adisfuer, etc. We also keep on
supporting as much as possible the Ayuntamientos
thanks to the Social Well-being agreements.
We have achieved over 125% of the electoral plan
of the Government’s pact that was presented at the
beginning and which no one was aware of in 2007,
and we have given answers to all the associations
within our budget possibilities.
I am also very proud of the Gold Medal that the Red
Cross awarded us in recognition of the social work carried
out by Fuerteventura’s Cabildo over the past year.