Ilyas The Masdouri know what it is to feel cold. The that he suffered when he was a minor moroccan, in the port of Ceuta, trying to get to the Peninsula, hidden in the bass of a truck whose wheels could come crashing down the head.” The one you dug up the bones when I slept scared between cartons in the streets of Barcelona. The same that, on a wet December night, gives no rest to those who are trying to sleep lying in a portal or a cashier of Jerez de la Frontera (Cádiz). “I was like, on the floor, and now I am the one who helps”, says the young man, of 19 years, while pulling a cart full of blankets and coats ready to be distributed.
Just few days ago that The Masdouri is temporarily placed in the home of a woman in jerez, but the tetuaní is already one of the immigrants who, since the month of November, decided to take the plunge to the street to hand out aid to homeless people who have even less resources than them. All are part of the Network Supporting Immigrants from Jerez Dimbali, a collective of about 30 people, including spaniards and foreigners, who started acting in the summer of 2018 before the collapse of migration which was in the province. In this period, the entity even has had time to create a football team, composed of young people of african origin.
Abdullah Abass is another one of those guys that takes advantage of the nights after soccer practice to go to distribute blankets to homeless people. Now is a young, curious and smiling just 18 years old, but just a year ago was one of the younger somalis rescued by Open Arms in waters near Libya, and ended up landing a 28 of December at the port of San Roque. To his side, Bubaca Biaro —a guinean 29-year-old dress elegant american who, if you jalean, hums for Shrimp— summarizes what makes you push that cart through the streets of Jerez: “we Need help, but we also like to help. I have health and I don’t have more, but I don’t like to see people in the street.”
MORE INFORMATION
Health latest a plan for the State to distribute to migrant minors between the communities Gorgui, the hero without papers you saved from the fire to a disabled Refugee in the stable in Bethlehem: a birth to the age Trump
It’s just the philosophy that the activist Iván Caro wanted to print to Dimbali since its founding and which now moves to out at night, on your initiative, called “The cold hurts, indifference kills”. “This is a mutual support. One day I’m wrong I, another you need help,” also coordinator of sports soccer team. And so it is about once a week, go out, past nine in the evening, from the headquarters of the trade union CNT in the plaza del Arenal to distribute warm clothes to the edge of the morning.
When Juan Carlos, a jerez aged 48, is the guys pulling his chariot blue on a cold Wednesday night in December is only right to point out the “hunger” that you drag. Ask for a coat, a fleece sweater and socks. “I have been three months living on the street. I’m going out there looking for me the life as I can,” he acknowledges before continuing your journey with several old appliances in tow. After he guesses to a lord greater than, lying on the floor of a building, you can barely articulate a sentence, and to clothe themselves with blankets. Beyond a German, who already know from previous times that he sleeps at the door of an atm.
“It’s funny when you say: ‘Look, the black comes to help us”, a kind Biaro bluntly. Both he and Abass now have a shared apartment in which to live, pending their application for asylum. The same thing happens with Mohamed Samba, a 22 year old man who tries to carve out a future in Spain as a tailor, his profession in Guinea. All histories difficult even to summarize. Biaro remember how he lost a friend and was “two days adrift” in the Narrow, until the Civil Guard rescued him. Abass is not able to forget the year he spent in Libya kidnapped in a room that only came out when he did call his mother to ask for a ransom that he might end up on a boat in the central Mediterranean.
Wake up with fear
Between manta and manta, Ilyas The Masdouri is able to explain how to sneak in the bass of a truck — “you have to move quick and find the gap”— and, also, how to sleep in the cold satin. “You’re looking for a piece of cardboard and a place to sleep, but I when someone approached me I would wake up with fear as if I did something,” recalls the young man, whose only recourse is the hole that Dimbali has gotten on the floor of a woman volunteer. The Masdouri had an older brother who drowned in the Straits, and, despite the fact that for him the european adventure is not to be also not easy, he recognizes that, of the four younger brothers that he has, for two “there is no one who will remove the head to come to Spain”.
Abass even wanted to finish his journey in the south of Spain. But, after passing through the center of under the age of Algeciras, and by a resource of care in Seville, is now happy in Jerez. “The only thing I want is to be able to work everything to help my family”, three of a kind little before continuing your journey. These will be their first Christmas in Europe, and the young man looks at that overdose of lighting extraordinary with curiosity. Suddenly, he stumbles upon a portal of Bethlehem actual size —Kings and shepherds included— outdoor. Abdullah looks up, and only right to ask: “And what about that family with those people around you who you are?”.
A network of support beyond what is public
The Network of Support to Immigrants from Jerez Dimbali emerged in the summer of 2018 in order to give response to the crisis that occurred then, to the saturation of public service of attention to immigrants. Now it has added other social purposes, such as helping the homeless of a city of 220,000 residents that includes a single municipal shelter of 47 seats. In the past few months, various popular initiatives have also arisen in the provinces of Cadiz, Seville and Malaga to help migrants who are left without resources when the Management are not covered. In El Puerto de Santa María, 10 families have already been integrated under the umbrella of the Network Host The Port to give up residence in their own homes to migrants extutelados. In total, in the province of Cadiz, there are already more than 50 families that offer to host these people.
