Photos: Sergio Betancort
The Fishing School as a teaching institution joins figures such as César Manrique, Grupo Cabrera Medina, Sor Ana, Jesús Soto, La Sociedad La Democracia, Juan Brito, Kenneth Gasque, Dr. Julio Santiago, José Calero, Santiago Alemán and the Palliative Care Unit of the General Hospital of Lanzarote Doctor Molina Orosa, awarded in previous editions
The National Polytechnic Institute of Maritime Fishing FP of the Canary Islands, known as the Fishing School, has been awarded by the Rotary Club Lanzarote with its highest distinction, the Conejero of the Year in its edition of this year 2018.
The award ceremony, a work by the Lanzarote artist and sculptor Paco Curbelo, took place on Friday in the assembly hall of this academic center in the capital of Lanzarote.
During the ceremony, the mayor of Arrecife, Eva de Anta, the general director of Fisheries of the Government of the Canary Islands, Orlando Umpiérrez, the mayor of Haría and regional parliamentarian, Marci Acuña, and the president of the Cabildo of Lanzarote, Pedro San Ginés Gutiérrez, were present.
The authorities present highlighted in their respective speeches the success of the Rotary Club Lanzarote in awarding this important award of Conejero of the Year to this polytechnic institute in this year of the 75th anniversary of the Fishing School, which has contributed to the training and learning of many professionals from the Island, the Canary Islands and Spain in their connection with nautical, fishing, cabotage, industrial refrigeration activities, and more recently in scuba diving and aquaculture.
The Maritime Fishing Institute of the Canary Islands of FP, known since its origins as the Fishing School, has been awarded the 'Conejero of the Year' in its 2018 edition, coinciding with the 75th Anniversary of the creation and foundation of this outstanding training center on the island of Lanzarote "for its great contribution to tanning and training the professionals of the sea linked to machinery and bridge, in recent decades," said the president of the Rotary Club Lanzarote yesterday in his speech.
Javier Fraile Bonafonte, director of the Fishing School, highlighted in his speech of thanks to the audience present in the assembly hall - including authorities, teachers, award winners in previous editions, Rotarians and Rotarians and the media - that "from now on, an exciting challenge opens up for professionals linked to the world of the sea. The boats will sail again (due to the use and advancement of alternative energies such as wind), aquaculture will develop in the high seas, and in a few decades we will witness underwater mining where the professionals who are trained today in regulated underwater activities will have a great future labor". Fraile Bonafonte thanked this award because "it is a recognition to all those who have trained in the past, or are in the present, a living body as an Educational Community in the history of Arrecife and the Canary Islands, where already in 1942 (in the midst of the Canary Island dispute) a peripheral island had the first academic center dedicated to training in nautical fishing professions". he stressed.
In the past edition of 2017, the winner was the founder of the NGO Calor y Café in Lanzarote, with 20 years of experience. Among those awarded by Rotary Club Lanzarote with the Conejero of the Year in previous editions, the Grupo Cabrera Medina, awarded in 2016, César Manrique, the Hermanos Díaz Rijo, creators of the first seawater desalination plant, stand out, among others; the artist Jesús Soto; the ceramist Juan Brito; the hotel manager José Figuereo Vivancos; the businessmen Juan Rosa Perdomo and José Calero - both promoters of the great urban and tourist developments on the Island; the psychiatrist Julio Santiago Obeso; and the Societies La Democracia and El Torrelavega, as well as Kenneth Gasque, the creator of the Ironman Lanzarote, the artist Santiago Alemán and the Palliative Care Unit of the General Hospital of Lanzarote Doctor Molina Orosa, among others.
The president of the Rotary Club of Lanzarote, Germán Alpuín Martínez, highlighted in the act where he presented the work of Paco Curbelo that this distinction to the Fishing School "recognizes the contribution, dedication of those who throughout its 75 years of history have been its teachers and staff who have made it possible, in the absence of these intermediate and higher degree studies on the island for many years, that a part of the conejera population accessed a level of training that allowed them to open a future in the labor field on the island where the fishing and maritime sector was still a strategic part of Lanzarote before the arrival of tourism. And now, highlights the president of the Rotarians, the Fishing School as the Maritime Fishing Institute of the Canary Islands has been able to adapt to the new training needs and has managed to be a benchmark in the Canary Islands and Spain in everything related to nautical education, aquaculture and professional diving, in addition to mechanical propulsion of ships and industrial refrigeration facilities, among others".
Commemorates 75 years of existence
Currently, in this center that commemorates 75 years of existence in this 2017/2018 academic year, the necessary studies are taught to obtain any of the existing qualifications for the government or the performance of functions on professional boats are specific Vocational Training (Training Cycles, regulated education) or exclusively professional (non-regulated education), are linked to Royal Decree 973/2009, of June 12, which regulates the professional qualifications of the merchant marine; the professional fishing titles are adjusted to Royal Decree 36/2014, of January 24, which regulates the professional titles of the fishing sector.
The award was received with joy by the Educational Community of the Fishing School, present in the assembly hall, and already have in their Polytechnic Institute a reduced-size replica of the 12-meter-high sculpture that is located on the Avenue in front of Playa del Reducto, in the capital of Lanzarote, dedicated to entrepreneurs and people awarded with the Conejero of the Year. The sculpture and the award of the Conejero of the Year is the work of Paco Curbelo, and was inaugurated in 2016 and paid for entirely by the Rotarians and transferred to the Island. Next to it, the name of the personalities recognized with the Annual Award of Rotary Club Lanzarote is inscribed.
During the event, presented by the Lanzarote journalist Severino Betancort - member of Rotary Club Lanzarote, a documentary was projected on the origins and history of the Fishing School where its logo created by the universal artist of Lanzarote, César Manrique, has a special symbolism, who would be born in 1919 in a house adjacent to the first facilities that this Fishing School had in 1942 when it opened on the current Juan de Quesada street, in front of the Charco de San Ginés, in the capital of Lanzarote.
