People are trying to return to normality in the Valencia region after the immense devastation on 29 October. The presence of volunteers is even more appreciated at this critical time.
Last week, a group of Youth for Peace from the Sant'Egidio Communities of Spain went to Sedaví, one of the towns affected by the Dana. They visited and supported the elderly and children.
The town square had been flooded to a height of two metres. Emergency units continue to pull rubble and mud-buried cars out of car parks and other basements. The sun has returned to shine, but it is not yet clear when the children will be able to resume classes.
After about two weeks shut indoors, the children poured into the town hall square in Sedaví, which filled with their voices as they hugged, talked, played and made drawings together. The Youth for Peace also handed them letters and drawings that their peers from the Sant'Egidio Peace Schools of Spain had prepared to show their solidarity. ‘You are not alone, we are close to you’ is the message found in more than a thousand drawings and letters. School buildings have in fact been badly hit and recovery work is not easy. Some young people from Sant'Egidio have been working on clearing the rubble and restoring the school. School supplies and games they brought with them will also be of great help.
Parents and grandparents joined that gathering with great emotion. The tiredness and pain of what they had experienced over the past weeks melted away in a celebration, which ended with lunch distribution.
The Youth for Peace also visited and listened to the elderly. Many saw their homes - mostly on the ground floor - flooded with water. Dora, an elderly woman in an institution, said: ‘ I would love to see the girl who saved me! I would like to give her a hug. She told me: ‘Let's climb five more steps and we will be saved!’ And she helped me to do it. No one has died in this institution thanks to the strength of the young people’.
