Solidarity: Sahara

According to José Luis Arsuaga in his book “La huella indeleble” it is very easy for human beings to show solidarity towards those who are near us, those we can actually see, but when we are asked to help people with serious needs who live thousands of kilometres away things are different.

We have considered several possibilities and we have found a way to send resources to those who need it most, even if they are in a different continent. While we were planning our initiative it turned out that Neus’ dad was planning his trip to the Sahara dessert. Neus is a member of our team so collaborating with this expedition was an easy thing to plan!

Our team sent resources to villages in the Sahara to places in process of development. Our associate, Primitivo (Neus’ dad) has travelled around Africa’s dessert with a man team to provide clothing, toys and other objects. Thanks to this trip we realized how hard it is to survive in those conditions and how lucky we are Europeans to enjoy our facilities. This trip lasted 11 days and it helped them to learn about the survival methods that were used in each village, some examples: in some villages they made bread and cooked some food in holes in the sand dunes where they lighted fires and cooked.

Our colleagues were able to observe that when people from the Sahara were given the resources we provided they thanked them very much, because normally when they delivered objects, they gave in return some artisan objects made by themselves (especially using rocks and minerals).

They also observed that women exercised a minuscule role in this society because they were not even allowed to talk to our partners.

This has been a very enlightening, supportive and instructive experience; sincerely our team has learned a lot from it.