Bicis para la Vida by ŠKODA delivers fourteen bicycles to the ‘Alas’ project work of the NGO olVIDAdos with the residents of El Pozo del Tío Raimundo

The Bicis para la Vida by ŠKODA project of the Contador Foundation wanted to participate in World Bike Day on 3 June with a donation of fourteen bicycles to the ‘Alas’ project of the NGO olVIDAdos and its work with the Asociación de Vecinos del Pozo del Tío Raimundo (Madrid), in a joint action with the Rotary Club Madrid Velázquez Internacional; both entities have provided food and other goods for groups that are going through a complicated situation in their daily lives.

This was an opportunity to meet Esperanza García Castro, Espe la del Pozo, the protagonist of one of those fascinating lives in pursuit of breaking down inequalities, helping others and an icon for the neighbourhood and the neighbourhood struggle from a solidarity perspective. In her eighties, Esperanza continues to help people without resources with food, clothes and even money.

A native of a village in Jaén, Esperanza settled with her family in Pozo del Tío Raimundo, which for decades remained on the fringes, or with little significant evolution, of the capital’s urban development. A neighbourhood weighed down by the label of a poor and perhaps problematic area against which Father Llanos began to fight significantly in the fifties of the 20th century. A fight that he impregnated in Esperanza when he arrived in Madrid and grew up here. From his efforts, the Fundación Esperanza y Alegría.

At the handover ceremony, the children of AMP Pinto, who are so decisively involved in the development of the project with their work in setting up the bicycles or in some of the deliveries and collections, were not missing. “I have loved this experience. Today we have delivered bicycles to people who don’t have the resources that we have to be able to have one. And here, with so many children, so happy… it’s a great emotion”, says César.