The Arrecife City Council has announced the opening of the Museum of the History of the capital. Four years after the project was started to create a museum space in an abandoned and non-functional infrastructure, destined to promote and disseminate the history of Arrecife within the historical framework of the events that occurred on the Island of Lanzarote, this museum finally opens its doors.
Without a doubt, the project in which I put the most enthusiasm in my stage as mayor of Arrecife.
After seeing the state of deterioration in which the well-known Castillo de San Gabriel was, the first thing I did was contact the technician Benchomo Guadalupe, responsible for the Municipal Archive, who I commissioned to prepare a report to install a Museum of the History of Arrecife there, which would invite both the local population and the occasional visitor to come and learn about the events that determined and influenced the lives of the people of Lanzarote in general and Arrecife in particular.
Benchomo Guadalupe did a magnificent job providing infrastructure to the space and contacting a team of teachers from the University of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria (ULPGC), headed by Professor Pablo Atoche, who were responsible for giving cultural and university content to the museum, locating in the different rooms of the castle a permanent exhibition that collects the history of Arrecife in its insular context.
Among the objectives we pursued, and I made this known to the head of the Municipal Archive, was the cultural one, in an attempt to bring our people closer to their past through a pedagogical and cultural activity, and, in turn, make it compatible with opening Arrecife to tourism, creating a circuit that would include the Charco de San Ginés, the sports and commercial ports of Arrecife, the icon of the Islote del Francés and the Museum of History, as well as the Arrecife Marina.
As is known, once this work was completed, even with fiscal ordinances and regulations of the museum itself approved by the corporation's plenary session, there were difficulties on the part of the Heritage of the Cabildo that prevented its opening in 2011 when this Museum of History was completed.
The staggering amount of three years has passed since then, but fortunately next Wednesday it will be a reality that will allow, among others, the creation of three direct jobs. The current government group has finally completed the bureaucratic and administrative 'loose ends' that remained since its completion.
As former mayor and promoter of this Museum of the History of Arrecife, I am very proud and fortunate of the start-up of this infrastructure, which will undoubtedly be very positive for Arrecife.
In addition to the adaptation of the creation of an open-air museum circuit that takes advantage of the existing heritage resources in the area, the contents of the museum also include identifying elements of sea life in Arrecife, passing through the barrilla, the cochineal, and everything that has been the evolution of the history of Lanzarote.
In short, a great project that becomes a reality thanks to the effort and perseverance of many people who saw in my initial concern as mayor an infrastructure that would give cultural and tourist value to the city of Arrecife.
From these lines I want to thank all the people who have collaborated in this exciting project for their work, especially Benchomo Guadalupe, as well as the team of professors from the ULPGC who have made this Museum of the History of Arrecife possible.
Cándido Reguera Díaz, former mayor of Arrecife