To change things there are two options, wait for them to change or contribute to making them do so. I, of course, am more of the latter.
When some colleagues suggested to me, a few months ago, to face the challenge of trying to turn Arrecife around together with the team of men and women from the Canarian Coalition in the Capital, I must admit that it made me dizzy.
Arrecife is a complicated territory, yes, but certainly an opportunity. An opportunity to demonstrate that the problem of Arrecife is neither its workers, nor the law, nor the bureaucracy because there are workers, laws and bureaucracies in all administrations and Arrecife is, in that sense, one more of them.
Arrecife needs a team, a group of men and women who bring to the administration the desire, the enthusiasm and the work that it has been lacking in recent months and we have in the Canarian Coalition the profiles and the people who can contribute to the capital that impulse it needs, the people who can excite and work to make change possible.
Arrecife needs a Project, we cannot continue working with improvisation, to recover the place that corresponds to us as the third capital of the Canary Islands, Arrecife is the Capital, not only for Lanzarote but for the Canary Islands and to turn the city around we need the Cabildo and the Government delivered and convinced that this, the Canarian Coalition Project, is what Arrecife needs. A city project that pampers its neighborhoods and highlights its possibilities, a project concerned with recovering the city for its people and a project that coordinates the actions that administrations develop in Arrecife.
A City with a Planning document that values its marina, that develops spaces for leisure and for sports and culture and that serves as an economic and labor engine for its people. A city that does not turn its back on its neighborhoods but looks towards them and that serves so that the people of Arrecife enjoy it but without forgetting what we are. The water paths, the natural pools, the sports areas, the free spaces or the large infrastructures should only be part of a whole planned and studied by and for its citizens. An Arrecife that we can be proud of.
Arrecife needs commitment, commitment is the tool to turn promises into realities and Arrecife needs it to get out of the place it is in. Commitment, presence in the streets, direct contact with groups, motivation of public workers and enthusiasm. Without commitment there are no solutions and if nothing changes we cannot change things. We, the women and men of the Canarian Coalition, are the ones who want to commit to Arrecife and its people, to the city and those of us who live in it, perseverance, effort and involvement, a vocation for public service and telephones on. Being in the street so that the problems do not reach the City Council but rather it is the City Council that goes to the problems to solve them.
Arrecife needs many things, of course, and I believe that I can contribute my grain of sand so that Arrecife changes led by the Canarian Coalition. I have had the good fortune to work alongside a close and decisive mayor like Oswaldo Betancort and alongside a brave and determined president, like Pedro San Ginés, and learned from them to offer Arrecife my time, dedication, enthusiasm and experience to contribute to making things change, changing things and I hope to have the support, first of my colleagues, and then of the citizens, to be able to do so.
Arrecife is the Capital and needs people to demonstrate it and work to change things and I hope to contribute my grain of sand to it.