Arrecife has had a social canteen since this Friday, the first one of public ownership in Lanzarote, which is located on Ángel Ganivet street, number 53, in the Titerroy neighborhood. “Its creation was absolutely necessary, and I want to tell all the people of Arrecife that we will be there helping and that no one will lack a plate of food,” says the mayor of Arrecife, Astrid Pérez, who describes it as a “shame” that there was not one in the capital.
The new social canteen will serve meals to those people who, due to a situation of vulnerability, cannot access any of the daily meals. It will be open between 12:00 and 18:00 hours, and will be attended to in order of arrival.
This new resource will have a total of 6 people working to help vulnerable people in the city, including a social worker, two dining room monitors, a cook, a kitchen assistant and a cleaner, all of them hired by the Arrecife City Council.
In addition to the food service, the service has a support service for social support deficits in which the social worker carries out social intervention for the development of applications such as the Minimum Basic Income, foreign documentation, advice on all types of financial benefits, referrals to institutions and associations or coordination with consulates. In addition, it also offers guidance, care and assistance to the groups to which the project is aimed, who need to acquire certain skills with which they can cope with the various social problems that may affect them.
Within the psychosocial assistance and, being a project of the City Council itself, the appropriate coordinations, referrals and interventions are carried out by the different specialized teams of Social Services of the Arrecife City Council, which have psychologists and educators, as well as social workers.
Likewise, one of the social workers of the social canteen will also combine the work with outings to the street, three times a week, to try to help those people who are in a situation of vulnerability.
In addition, the Arrecife City Council offers a social inclusion program, in which a multidisciplinary team participates, to help people who are living on the street to reintegrate into society.
“It is very difficult for a person to reintegrate into society, but we work to ensure that little by little these people have a second chance in life, and this social canteen will serve to contribute our grain of sand so that this happens,” says the councilor, María Jesús Tovar.
