The Tiemar Rural Women's Association has denounced the "deficit" in women's care services on the island and has demanded "stable financial support" from institutions to be able to maintain its Comprehensive Women's Care Center, whose continuity it assures is "in danger" due to the "lack of economic resources."
"Despite the need to keep this Center open, which covers a necessary and permanent demand on the island of Lanzarote, we are forced by the lack of sensitivity of public administrations to function without stable financial support, which prevents us from having an interdisciplinary team that attends to these needs of women and their families, currently maintaining the center on a restrictive schedule and with hardly any technical personnel, which moves away from the objective of good comprehensive care for women and endangers its continuity," argue from Tiemar.
Tiemar considers that, despite being the third most populated island, it is "under-resourced in social resources and basic welfare services, both educational, health and specialized care, which places its population in a situation of effective rights deficits." Regarding women's care services, they recall that there is the Women's Information and Care Center (CIAM), dependent on the Department of Social Welfare of the Cabildo, which offers Care for Women Victims of Gender Violence and their children, but in their opinion it is "insufficient to cover the seven municipalities of the island, and only in the morning."
A center that has been suffering "temporary closures"
Therefore, Tiemar points out that, after starting its activity in Lanzarote in 2003 as an entity that works on leisure and the revitalization of rural women, it decided a year later to create the Women's Care Center "as a response to these deficits." In it, 366 women and 22 men have been attended through eight editions of the 'Rural Woman Municipality' project "who demanded various services and benefits through subsidies from the Canarian Employment Service."
These subsidies, explain from the feminist association, allowed them to hire for six months a year an interdisciplinary professional team made up of a social worker, psychologist, lawyer and socio-cultural animators and/or social educators, "which allowed to offer comprehensive care to women and their families in a wide morning and afternoon schedule." "The Canarian Employment Service (SCE) covered more or less 80% and the San Bartolomé City Council supported with 20%, except in 2010 when it decided not to contribute. The other six months of the year the center remained open in an unstable manner thanks to volunteering," they point out.
However, they point out that "the lack of economic resources for hiring the team of professionals in a stable manner and with sufficient economic resources made the association decide not to continue opting for the subsidy calls until again in 2014, forced by the demand of women who requested care and service."
"Despite the ratio of women attended and the need and satisfaction with this service by other resources on the island (which frequently refer women) of its members and users, this service has lacked stable and sufficient funding, generating on occasions, its temporary closure and a lack of continuity in the care and activities offered aimed at providing answers to other detected needs of individual social psychological, legal care, pre-labor and labor advice, training and education, legal and health advice, as well as leisure and participation in social activities that help prevent situations of isolation and social exclusion,"
Agreements approved in the last assembly
Therefore, in the last assembly of 2017, by unanimous vote of all its members, the Tiemar association approved to publicly denounce "the current situation of our island and the deficit of services that fundamentally affect those women and their families who present associated problems such as depression, loneliness, unemployment, information needs, housing, a meeting, learning or recycling space, psychological or labor care, accompaniment to courts or health services, care and advice to women victims of gender violence."
Likewise, it was agreed to urge regional and local administrations "not only to support Tiemar for being an association of recognized trajectory on the island and that has been awarded for its work by the Canarian Institute of Women, by the San Bartolomé City Council and by the Canarian Employment Service," but to "commit" to the maintenance of its center "with stable funding that allows to maintain this service on the island of Lanzarote, for being so demanded and necessary for offering comprehensive care to women and their families with associated problems in a wide schedule and with diverse and complementary services and benefits."