The City Council of San Bartolomé de Tirajana and the Rotary Club of the municipality commemorate the International Day of Peace with a special dedication to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights
The Rotary president highlights that the exemplary intercultural coexistence that Maspalomas exudes is the seed of its success as a tourist destination
The close ties of understanding and social and cultural collaboration that the San Bartolomé de Tirajana City Council and the Rotary Club of the municipality have maintained since 1981 were strengthened this Thursday in the commemorative event of the International Day of Peace, celebrated jointly in the natural environment of Tony Gallardo Park, at dusk, with a special mention of the 75th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
Mayor Marco Aurelio Pérez Sánchez, in his greeting to the fifty attendees, thanked the Rotarians for “the important work of reminding us all of the need to live in peace and harmony, not only in relationships and daily contact with others but also internally, because each person must contribute to a better world from the perspective that they are capable of understanding and developing,” he said.
At the event, where all attendees received a white rose to remember the anniversary, Arista Jaime Báez also participated as spokesperson for Rotary District 2201. She shared reflections on the role of Rotarians in promoting world peace through their support for the development of humanitarian programs against poverty, discrimination, ethnic tensions, lack of access to education and unequal distribution of resources. “Our commitment to building peace today faces new challenges. We ask ourselves how we can maximize our impact and make lasting change,” he said. He also recalled the four “essential functions” that Rotarians perform as peacemakers. As “practitioners” in fighting disease, providing sanitation and clean water, improving maternal and child health, supporting education and fostering local economies; as “educators,” training more than 1.600 fellows to become effective agents of peace in their careers in government, education, and international organizations; as humanitarian “mediators” in crucial ceasefire negotiations in conflict zones to allow health workers to reach children in danger, especially in the context of polio eradication; and finally as impartial “promoters” in peace processes and in the phases of social reconstruction after conflicts. Alluding to the Rotary dean at the UN, Ed Futa, he insisted that “peace is not just a word, but must be lived, because its construction is a prevailing need, it requires commitment, collaboration, patience and resilience,” he said.
Model coexistence
It was Daniel Bazán Lorenzo, president of the municipality's Rotarians, who spoke about the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and its 75th anniversary. He placed emphasis on the first two articles of the Charter, relating to the free and equal birth of all human beings and the freedom and rights that every person has without distinction of race, color, sex, language, religion, opinion, social origin, economic position, birth or any other condition. He argued that such rights “can be seen and felt in Maspalomas, where people of 127 different nationalities have been able to live in peace, prioritizing coexistence and respect for human rights.” To accentuate this perception, the president of the Rotarians alluded to a textual expression by the Norwegian sociologist and mathematician Johan Galtung: “Maspalomas is a world of peace in miniature, a model to follow,” he said. And he stated that the exemplary coexistence and intercultural collaboration that Maspalomas exudes "make possible its success as one of the most important tourist destinations in the world with more than a million annual visitors from all types of countries, religions and sexual tendencies."
The president of the Rotarians of Maspalomas recalled that it was here where the first ecumenical temple in Europe was built as a space for religious dialogue "where practically all the official and free churches and all the homelands of the world coexist in harmony and tolerance", and also alluded as a cultural insignia of that tolerance to the sculptural forest that constitutes the Peace Park, inaugurated on Wednesday, March 25, 2015 by the City Council and the Hindustani community of the municipality, dedicated to civility, non-violence and solidarity that summarize the referential thought of Mahatma Gandhi.
Bazán also highlighted as an iconic symbol of the kindness of Maspalomas, recognized as a Rotary City of Peace on March 29, 2016, the sculpture 'Universal Friendship' located in the central roundabout of Avenida Touroperador Tui de Campo Internacional. It was given to the municipality by local Rotarians, and in its conceptual materialization forged in Corten steel, the figurative elements include a mound of dunes, a sea wave in the shape of a wave, and five intertwined hands that represent the hopeful unity and solidarity of the five races. and the five continents, and the emblematic cogwheel of Rotarians as an allegory of civilization and its movement towards a better and more just society.
