Cuban families descending from Zamora will have the opportunity to settle in the Spanish province with the Reto Zamora program, a project announced this Tuesday by the Junta de Castilla y León (region to which that northwestern city belongs) to attract new neighbors to one of the areas hardest hit by depopulation in the entire country.
The plan, endowed with 500,000 euros, provides that between 15 and 20 families descending from Zamoranos who went to Cuba, Mexico and Argentina, may choose to settle in Spain with a work contract in the care sector.
“All of them will be guaranteed the necessary training at origin to join personal assistant jobs, being able, once here, to opt for further training to carry out their work in different institutions”, said Isabel Blanco, at the presentation of the project. Counselor for Family and Equal Opportunities.
The families will have financial support during the first three months to guarantee their settlement, in addition to a housing solution through social rentals, with the collaboration of the municipalities and the Board as a mediator. In addition, the trip to Spain and the province – an hour and a half by high-speed train from Madrid or three by bus – are also covered by the project.
Those who enter the plan must formalize commitments of permanence and training within the care sector
In return, those who enter the plan must formalize commitments to stay and train within the care sector. In this sense, the applicants are inserted in another project that has been working for months under the name Network Care and that seeks to offer individualized care to the elderly, dependent, disabled or chronically ill, in residential centers and in their homes.
Blanco explained that the Board had detected that 25% of contracts to provide personal assistance services in the rural world are made to migrants, so the integration of both plans updates the strategy while putting the international focus on the province Spain, in demographic crisis since the 1960s.
María Antonia Rabanillo, president of the Council of Spanish Residents in Cuba and the Association of Castilian and Leonese Societies and of the Zamorana Colony of Cuba, explained during a visit to Zamora that there are some 2,000 inhabitants on the island with roots in the province.
According to the National Institute of Statistics, of the 183,676 Castilians and Leonese who reside abroad, 9,712 live in Cuba.
Zamora, 255 kilometers from the capital, is the oldest Spanish province, with an average age of its population that exceeds 51 years. In addition, it is one of the areas with the greatest demographic dispersion, with 15 inhabitants per square kilometer, many of them in towns of less than 100 inhabitants.
Among its advantages, in return, are the prices, with the cheapest homes in the country, or its natural heritage, in which the Sierra de la Culebra stands out – one of the main lungs of Spain – or the Sanabria lake, the most Europe’s largest glacier.
________________________
Collaborate with our work:
The team of 14ymedio is committed to doing serious journalism that reflects the reality of deep Cuba. Thank you for joining us on this long road. We invite you to continue supporting us, but this time becoming a member of our journal. Together we can continue transforming journalism in Cuba.
