Ángel de Propios has “a big problem”: he doesn’t know how to say no. Those who approached the president of Aspaym Castilla y León at an event had him in mind and that is why they proposed that he be the first disabled person to join the association. “In Morocco for Children” (Amporni) challenge, an eleven-day humanitarian mission that will cover 4,500 kilometers from the neighboring country using an SUV. “The truth is that I hadn’t even thought about it,” smiles the regional head of the organization, already about to begin the odyssey, which he will share with 45 other people distributed in a total of 17 vehicles. The objective – as in each of these trips, which began a decade ago – will be to distribute school supplies, clothes or shoes.
“A lot of times people think that because we have a disability we can’t do a lot of things. So part of it is breaking down that barrier and making people understand that we may need certain adaptations or supports, but that disability doesn’t stop us from taking on a challenge. . . like that,” De Propios says. In the trunk of your The adapted “jeep” will have an additional wheelchair and a “handbike”which could be defined as a cross between a bicycle and a motorcycle that is controlled with the arms and could be useful if the terrain becomes rocky.
For the rest, the preparations are those of an expedition in which “the one who goes, repeats” and in which the majority makes at least four trips together, a “reassuring” experience for the president of Aspaym. “We have already distributed the material, we are labeling the cars, we have bought food…” He has participated in other initiatives, such as the one his organization shares with the “Friends of Gambia.”but never in a vehicle that requires so many hours behind the wheel and a constant change of location.
For this reason, caution is a good advisor, but it cannot overcome Ángel’s determination, and it was a car accident that left him in a wheelchair at the age of 21. “At first you are in shock, you don’t know what to do. I saw that I could continue thanks to my family, the people who surround me today and Aspaym. “I would like to encourage people who have just had an accident and are in a wheelchair to do things,” he emphasizes. “Don’t let them stay at home, because a wheelchair changes your life, but you can move forward and take on challenges,” he says.
Although the challenge is for him to travel “as many kilometers as possible”, the social worker of the delegation, Consuelo Muñoz, will accompany him as a co-driver, and a support car is planned in which his cousin and his wife, Alberto Sáez and Sonsoles Sánchez, already aware of this initiative. And Amporni has grown year after year in Ávila, promoted by Emilio Burguillo, a rally enthusiast who traveled to Morocco thanks to one of them and decided to create the project after seeing the needs of some of its southern enclaves. On this occasion, the route reduction planned in ten stages between September 23 and October 2from Ávila to Algeciras, then Tangier, Marrakech, return to different points of the Sahara – such as Merzouga or Ifrán – and return to the ferry from Tangier.
Become “one more”
Angel of the clean He admits to some concern about what he might find during the trip, but he also faces the adventure “with great enthusiasm and desire.” “I am very grateful that they counted on me. I think it is a very beautiful project that deserves me to contribute everything I can,” he comments.
And that means facing the disbelief of many. “It is difficult to change everyone’s mentality,” acknowledges the president of Aspaym. “When they talk to me about architectural barriers, I always say that they have an easy solution compared to mental solutions when they see you as the ‘poor’ person who can’t do anything because he is in a wheelchair,” he said. said. “There were people who said to me, ‘but how are you going to do that with your situation?’. And my situation is that I am on a chair. Another can have another ‘situation’ and do the same thing,” he naturally points out. “It’s hard for them to see that you are one more. “We have to live with it and continue working so that people normalize this situation.”
