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For Alejandro Plans, spokesman for the political party Por Un Mundo Más Justo (M + J), on April 20 Madrid woke up "grayer". In the middle of the electoral campaign, Vox hung a poster in the Puerta del Sol Metro station with one of the most aggressive and explicit attacks on unaccompanied foreign minors to date: “Un mena [derogatory acronym for these migrant children] 4,700 euros per month. Your grandmother 426 euros of pension per month. Protect Madrid ”. "We couldn't believe it," Plans says by phone. "They were messing with the most vulnerable population there is: children." In response and "without wanting to fall into revanchism", M + J decided to replace the posters and the message with a sign in which four young ex-ward and a quote appear: "We have come to add and work." Every month for the next yearthey will change with other faces and new "stories of real lives so that we will never again see messages against minors in public spaces."
More information
Vox's strategy: fear and sell protection
A judge refuses to withdraw the Vox poster against immigrant minors, as requested by the Prosecutor's Office
Vox copies Nazi propaganda techniques
The protagonists of the new poster are Abderrahim Belghalia, Mohamed El Azzouzi, Abdelouadoud Abboute and Mohamed Lamine Kobele Keita, in order from left to right.
The four young people under 20 years of age arrived from Morocco and Equatorial Guinea as just children and with one thing clear.
"We wanted more opportunities than our country gave us," says El Azzouzi by phone.
This 19-year-old boy, who is processing the papers to be hired by a screen printing company in Granada, arrived in a boat that he bought together with 11 friends from the neighborhood almost three years ago.
He spent the first year in a center for minors and when he turned 18, he entered one of the apartments for young ex-ward, managed by the Junta de Andalucía and the Engloba Association.
"It was not easy at all, but it was what I was coming for," he says.
These days he is looking for a rental apartment to which he can move with what he has saved from internships at this company.
I felt angry when I saw that message from Vox.
I don't want to take anything from anyone
Mohamed El Azzouzi, ex-ward Moroccan youth
The Vox poster was, according to this young man, the first racist attack suffered in Spain. "Here they have always helped us and no one had disrespected us in that way," says the Moroccan saddened. "I felt anger. I don't want to take anything from anyone ”. For Carmen Pastor, coordinator of the Engloba Association's coming of age programs, it is outrageous to have to continually deny that foreign minors are not criminals: “They are totally normal boys, but with more difficulties than any other 18-year-old. And in record time they have to learn a language, move between the different administrations, improve their skills to aspire to a job… ”.
Precisely that, their day to day, is what these four friends told in the short
The Two Sides of the Coin. “I came to this
”, which they recorded during their quarantine period for the CEAR Juvenil Andalucine festival and for which they obtained the award in the audience category and two more awards at the United Nations PLURAL + Festival. In this clip of less than five minutes, made with the help of the audiovisual production students Jorge Orellana Lorenzo, Pedro Carrillo Pastor and Inma Diéguez Urbano and the musician Joaquín Abel Agüera Gómez, the xenophobic discourse of Vox is questioned. “There are those who think that the young ex-ward have not come to Spain to integrate. But I did not leave everything to do that ”, they narrate in the video.
The minors who arrive in Spain are these.
Not the criminals and dangerous that Vox wants to portray
Alejandro Plans, M + J spokesperson
Since they saw the short in M + J, they got in touch with the Andalusian association.
"The minors who come to Spain are these," says Plans.
"Not the criminals and dangerous that Vox wants to portray."
Therefore, to "heal the wound generated by policies based on fear and confusion," the political party of almost 700 members and without representation in Congress, is preparing the following posters.
“During the next year that space is reserved to protect these minors.
It is a symbol to restore dignity in the same place where they were violated ”.
Although the poster has been painted with some insults and a "long live Spain" next to the face of one of them, Plans assures that "there are more" who celebrate the new poster.
“In it we invite people to take a
selfie
with these guys and send it to us, and we have received a lot of support.
It was a necessary act that we had pending as a society, ”he says.
An obstacle course
For Pastor, these guys are only a flag of courage and perseverance. "The process of arriving in another country, adapting, training and entering the labor market is slow and very difficult," he explains. Once these minors reach the age of majority, they are no longer protected by the Government and tend to make a living on their own or try to join support initiatives such as those of the Engloba Association. “The only thing they aspire to is to save, be independent and go home to tell their parents that everything they did was worth it. But they are also teenagers, and they need to enjoy themselves and make friends. Of course they are not criminals, but being on the street and without any help or resources they are more likely to make mistakes. Like anyone in that situation ”.
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