[Part 1] The NGO La Esperanza is part of the solidarity history of the Augustinian-Recollect Family and of Navarre. After the last flea market and the sale of their goods, their work is definitively closed. In this tribute they recount their work, their faith and their history.
How did it all begin?
The origin is impossible to forget and can be recounted in detail, we remember it as if it were yesterday. It was through Mari Carmen Lizaso, known here by everyone as Mamen, and her friendship with the Recollect religious friar Joaquín Pertíñez.
Joaquín was very handy with crafts and went to some courses at the House of Culture in Lodosa to work with clay. There he met Mamen and a strong friendship was forged. Joaquín shared with her the excitement with which he had offered to go to Brazil and the result when they told him that he was assigned to the Lábrea Mission, in the Amazon.
Mamen was a very good friend of Corpus and they spent a lot of time together, especially when they were expecting their fourth and first children, respectively. Mamen read to Corpus what Joaquín had told her in a letter about the situation of the children in that remote Brazilian Amazon. They wanted to help, but they had nothing to spare. They sent some help, but they saw it as insufficient, until God lit a light in Corpus‘ heart and mind:
“We had so little to give! But when we looked at our houses, in all of them there were tablecloths and piles of unused things: How many extra things we have! What if we set up a missionary market with the things that we don’t use and are in good condition?”
They went to the Parish of Saint Michael in Lodosa, attended by two Augustinian Recollects, Plácido Rodrigo and Santiago García, to talk to them about their concern, and they welcomed the idea. They began to collect materials and stored them in the parish house, empty because the Recollect religious lived with their community at the Saint Joseph Seminary.
They made a lot of publicity so that on March 19, 1994, Saint Joseph’s day, the people of the town would come to their first charity market. The second was almost a month later, on April 10, taking advantage of Palm Sunday, in the neighboring Parish of Saint Mary in Sesma, where another Recollect from the community of Lodosa, Francisco Piérola, was the parish priest.
“Our hope was to obtain about 50,000 pesetas (300€); The most optimistic ones spoke of up to 100,000 pesetas (600€). But between the two flea markets we got 1,017,000 pesetas (6,112.29€). We will never forget that amount; it seemed like we had climbed Everest. And Joaquín built the first Hope Centre for 12 children in Lábrea.”
But all this ended up in a fully-fledged NGO. How was the process?
The motivation was that letters and photos kept arriving showing what had been done with the money sent. And, of course, it was never enough; Joaquín wrote:
— “They leave the children at the door, rickety, malnourished… We have to help them!”
As mothers, that touched our souls. We are not the result of a programmatic approach, but everything has been by the work and grace of the Holy Spirit, step by step. We have always found people who have wanted to help us, people placed there by God.
After the first markets, seeing that this was here to stay, Plácido gave us some rooms in the Parish where we set up some painting and sewing workshops. Plaster was in fashion and we thought of making nativity scenes, so we went to Cintruénigo (55 kilometres from Lodosa) to look for help, because they are specialists in plaster there.
On the other hand, in a conversation with a lay Vincentian missionary, Amaya, she asked us:
— Why don’t you create an NGO?
Our first response was:
— And what is that?
We gathered information in a self-taught way, we saw the advantages it brought, and we drew up some Statutes, but up to four versions were not approved by the authorities. We had already desisted and decided to continue doing things as we had at the beginning, but December 5th arrived, the day of the Augustinian Recollection, and we went to Marcilla to celebrate it.
There we met the Augustinian Recollect Pablo Panedas, who showed great interest in our work and offered to help us with the drafting of the Statutes. After several winter trips through fog and ice to draft them, we soon obtained the seal of approval. There was so much excitement and joy!
Since October 1996 we were officially a Non-Governmental Organization. This meant that we could apply for official subsidies from public Administrations, from their budgets for development aid.
During this period it was the Augustinian Recollect Jesús Vera who helped us by taking us to and from the markets. Jesús Mari Garrasa was the mayor of Lodosa, we introduced him to the NGO and he made María Gurpegui, a technician from the Office of Tourism and Local Development, available to help us with the paperwork. Our thing was enthusiasm, drive, talking to people and convincing them to help… but not paperwork.
When the City Council changed, these technical and paperwork issues were transferred to the Commission for Missions and Social Development of the Province of Saint Nicholas of Tolentine of the Augustinian Recollects, which put its technician, Inés Parrondo, at our disposal.
Inés, dedicated and faithful, managed to get the NGO to open three more branches (Pamplona, Madrid and Chiclana de la Frontera, Cádiz), expanding the possibility of applying for more grants in more geographical areas and to more Administrations.
With these collaborations, many things were done, although the problem was not so much presenting the projects, but rather getting everything necessary to justify the expenses according to the standard here but with the paperwork and communication difficulties there.
The time also came to become independent, so to speak; the Augustinian Recollects no longer served the Parish of Lodosa and we had to return the parish halls, because now they were needed. We were convinced that this was the work of God and of our father Saint Augustine. Without our own resources, since we sent everything to the missions, we managed to buy a headquarters and a van, because the one the Recollects had lent us was no longer enough. And we went ahead, because the work is God’s.
The next step was the involvement of our families and our surroundings. A nephew who runs a quality canned food company had the opportunity to visit some of the missions and specific projects that we helped in Brazil and Sierra Leone. He was extremely involved; he delivered 2,000 jars of preserves for the markets every year: the company provided the goods, the machines and the work, but did not hesitate to ask for collaboration from its suppliers.
The charity markets have been your most recognizable hallmark. Were there many?
We have really lost count of how many markets we have held: they are countless. We have travelled to the provinces of Navarre, Saragossa, Madrid… Some years we have reached half a dozen, as opportunities arose. The result, more than two million euros have gone to those who needed it most. Everything achieved with that money has been super important, very good.
In addition to the money from the flea markets, we have sent many essential goods to the mission areas, especially to Sierra Leone; even until very recently: last year, through some doctors, we managed to send 40 boxes of food and sewing machines to the Poor Clares of Lunsar (Sierra Leone).
The last flea market took place in Madrid, in the curia of the Province of Saint Nicholas of Tolentine. Even some of us had bronchitis, but it was our farewell. We raised a little over a thousand euros and left our last materials to a sister NGO, HelpFortaleza, and preserves for the Monastery of the contemplative Augustinian Recollects nuns.
In Lodosa we said goodbye with two flea markets, one during the August festivities, on the 4th, and another on the 5th of October, during the Feast of the Piquillo pepper. Between them we raised €2,500 for India, to the mission where the Salesian from Lodosa Alfredo Marzo works, over 90 years old and 70 years working there, another regular in our efforts.
The remaining material was donated to the Help Lábrea group in Getafe; and the icing on the cake will be the sale of the van and the headquarters. The €5,000 from the van has been sent to the Saint Monica Home in Fortaleza; and by agreement and desire of all, the proceeds from the headquarters will be sent to those with whom it all began: to Joaquín Pertíñez, today bishop of Rio Branco, Acre, Brazil; and to the Hope Centers of the Amazon.