Bilbao inaugurates the Plazuela Don Diego Berguices in Otxarkoaga to recognize his “community and educational work”
AUDIO: Link to audio file available at the end of the text.
BILBAO, 23 Jan. (EUROPE PRESS) –
The mayor of Bilbao, Juan Mari Aburto, has inaugurated this Monday in the Otxarkoaga neighborhood the Plazuela Don Diego Berguices, in response to a neighborhood petition to “remember, honor and thank the community and educational work” that this priest carried out in the neighborhood for more than three decades.
With the inauguration of this square, which is located between the two buildings of the Santos Justo y Pastor Parish, close to the Kepa Enbeitia ‘Urrentxindorra’ Square in Otxarkoaga, Bilbao has 921 lanes.
At the inauguration of Plazuela Don Diego Berguices, the Mayor of Bilbao highlighted the importance of Bilbao remembering figures like his, “an example of social commitment and solidarity”.
In this sense, he recalled that Berguices, “a good person”, was a forerunner of “pioneering” community and educational initiatives in the neighbourhood, which provided “opportunities for the most vulnerable groups and opened the doors to a better life for many families from area”. “That they made Otxarkoaga, Bilbao, a better neighborhood and city for everyone”, he pointed out.
In addition to the mayor, the Councilor for Attention and Citizen and International Participation, Oihane Agirregoitia, as well as other members of the Municipal Corporation, and the Bishop of Bilbao, Joseba Segura, participated in the inauguration.
As specified by the Bilbao City Council, the new nomenclature included in the street map of the Biscayan capital has no effects on homes or businesses.
30 YEARS WORKING FOR OTXARKOAGA
From the Consistory they have recalled that the one from Berguices to Otxarkoaga in 1962 coincided with the beginnings of a neighborhood “unfinished in urban planning” and with a lack of services, so that “its first objective was to alleviate the deficiencies derived from these two circumstances”.
As they have highlighted, Diego Berguices focused his efforts on childhood and youth from the perspective of the educational field. In this way, he led the implementation of the elementary schools in the parish premises, the master’s school, “precursor of Vocational Training and base of the current Otxarkoaga Training Center”, of which he was the founder, “always adapting teaching to the possibilities and circumstances” of the youth of the neighborhood.
He was also in charge of providing them with a leisure space in summer, with the colonies that were held every year in the coastal town of Bakio.
During the more than 30 years of priesthood in the neighborhood, Diego Berguices developed other social initiatives that allowed him to set up the first nursery in the neighborhood, collaborated with the first social workers in the area and also cared for people with alcoholism problems. and mental illness.
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media content:
Audio: Bilbao inaugurates the Plazuela Don Diego Berguices in Otxarkoaga
Duration: 01:38
Download URL: https://audio.europapress.es/archivo/733604/1