“Crystal Generation?” What is this ?“, said a boy while removing the rubble of a house. Seven days after the passage of the DANA rehabilitation, clean-up and rescue work continues. Ground Zero is still stained brown, layers of mud hinder access and despite the efforts of security and emergency forces, citizen collaboration is essential. The streets are not only filled with the remains of the storm, the wave of volunteers keeps arrivingamong them, hundreds of young people who do not hesitate for a second to help as much as they can.
Paiporta, Aldaia, Catarroja, Alfafar…, whatever the locality affected, the youth touched everyone and everywhere. “We come from Barcelona,” explains Santi, a student who skips classes to help out. Just like Saint-Santiare Fernando, Carlos, Michele and several other colleagues who belong to a young student organization represented within the university’s faculty and study council. University of Barcelona.
“We always seek the common good, reflected at the student but also social level,” explains the reason why they are in the streets of Alfafar. Given the situation that occurred in the province of Valencepositions, ages, professions…, they seem to have previously forgotten the need to help. “This is why we are here today. The Valencians are our brothers, our compatriots.”
Fernando comes from Barcelona to collaborate at Ground Zero in Valencia.
The Spanish
So far, eight members of their association have arrived, but they hope there will be more soon. The restrictions on Catalonia They have been placed between a rock and a hard place. Road closures and heavy rain warnings have meant that many volunteers cannot come downeven if the desire to collaborate is greater than anything. “I’m going to make up for it. There is a wrong image of young people. We have a lot to say and prove, you can see it now. Just look in the streets, we are all young“.
Young people for the people
A few meters from an operation EMU what concerns unblock a sewertwo little girls 11 years old They help them with brooms. “We come from a town 30 kilometers away to support them. I want my daughters to understand that there are children their age who have lost everything,” says the mother. Others, like Blanca, from Madrid, did not want to find themselves without the possibility of contributing their grain of sand. “DANA reached out to several friends who live in Valencia. We loaded up the car and went there,” says the twenty-year-old. Crossing checkpoints and assigned routes, White and his friends dropped off provisions in the towns they passed through. “There is no consciousness. Everything they tell us and see has no comparison to being there.”
Among a team of firefighters emptying water from a garage appears Mario. Newly incorporated into the body, since Soria and with just 26 years old reports that he is very disconnected “crystal generation”. “I grew up in a very small town, with different values linked to nature and work. There are perhaps generations a little more hardworking than others, but when we respond, we respond.”
Mario, 26, comes from Soria with his fire team to empty the Alfafar garages.
The Spanish
Group of young people helping Madrid firefighters to unblock a sewer in Llocnou.
The Spanish
The crystal generation It is nothing more than a metaphorical expression to reflect the emotional fragility and social weakness of contemporary adolescents and young people. Personalities like Pérez-Reverte use this term because “we are creating generations of young people who are not prepared for the arrival of the Titanic iceberg”, this is how the author expresses himself in The anthill. And the iceberg appeared, only in the form of a storm.
A week after the tragedy, the young people continue to arrive. Alex, Léa, Charlotte, Chloé and Laurine, a group of French people who came from Valencia to help in the streets of Ground Zero. Mud-stained and looking tired, they told this newspaper they could not stay at home and do nothing. A bus and more than 50 minutes of walking to be able to clear the entrance of some elderly gentlemen from the town of Picanya “We left our homes at 7:30 in the morning and when we arrived in the affected villages we tried to help .those who need it.”
Alfafar, Valencia
Valencians for Valencia
If there are young people from all over Spain, even from other parts of the world, who arrive in the province, those who live in the same community are countless. From one of Alfafar’s hundreds of destroyed basements come Carlos and Mario, both 21 years old, holding a bucket of rubble between them: “I should study for an exam but I prefer to be here at the end. We are all Valencians and we must support each other.” between us. I can’t stand by and do nothing while my “neighbors” find themselves practically with nothing.
The mayor of the municipality of Llocnou stressed that in the municipalities concerned, there is no difference between adults and young people, everyone helps in the same way. “I can’t say anything about the crystal generation because I haven’t seen it, at least not here,” he says. Behind her, a chain of 15 boys band together to carry supplies from a truck to the collection point.
Santi, Fernando, Carlos, Michel…, are from the Students for Change association (Barcelona) and collaborate with the inhabitants of Ground Zero.
The Spanish
Patricia And Paul 18 years old, and Emma, Zoe And Mine14 years old, come from other less affected cities to clean the streets that need it most. “As soon as I wake up, I walk around towns in case someone needs me,” Pau explains. With classes temporarily canceled, most students replaced books with shovels. “They say that we are all on cell phones, but now we have our hands in the mud. Moreover, thanks to these cell phones, it is us, the young people, who are broadcasting and showing the reality that exists in Valencia”, Mía adds. .
Some of these young people have already emancipated themselves, like Lydiawho, faced with the “dystopian” scenario, had to return to his parents to take care of his sick mother. Each new situation generates new needs. Young Valencians are faced with situations and responsibilities, sometimes beyond their age. “I saw children of 15 years at night, for boys who injured their hands carrying shovels all day, and for young people who organize aid groups to bring food to places where it doesn’t reach,” he emphasizes. The DANA Everything has changed and so have the new generations. Daniel He sums it up simply: “That’s what it takes.”.
