Visit to Palencia

Journalists from the Biskupiec branch of the Polish Association for People with Intellectual Disabilities were hosted by journalists from the Group San Cebrian Foundation from October 17^th to 19th, 2022 in Palencia. The office of the San Cebrian Foundation is located there. During the visit, a joint radio broadcast was created, broadcasted live from the building of the Castile and León Provincial Office. In addition, guests from Poland were invited to the City Hall, where they were received by the mayor and his employees. There, they had the opportunity to sit at the table in the main hall of the office and listen to the mayor’s stories about work of the City Hall. They were also invited to the headquarters of the San Cebrian Foundation Group, about half an hour’s drive from Palencia. The town itself has about 400 inhabitants, of which 150 are people supported by the Foundation. The Poles were shown around the buildings by the Director of the Foundation’s Centre. They saw the Senior Home, the rooms of the residents of the house and the activities conducted for them. They also saw the laundries, the grounds and the buildings there. During the tour, the Foundation’s Director talked about the activities carried out in the Center and the city, where people benefiting from the Foundation’s help live independently, with the support of the Foundation. The Director briefly talked about the incredible integration of all the residents of Cebrian, where the previously existing divisions between the inhabitants and people who moved there after the Foundation’s operation were blurred. This process began over 40 years ago with attitudes of distrust, reserve and fear, and evolved towards full assimilation of people with intellectual disabilities with the local community. On the way back to Palencia from Cebrain, the project participants visited the hill where stood a huge statue of Christ, almost 20 meters high, made by Victorio Macho. The hands of the figure in a gesture of blessing are directed towards the city that lies at his feet. This statue is the largest in Europe and the second in the world after the figure of Christ from Rio de Janeiro. After returning to Palencia, the participants of the Project had lunch together in a restaurant located at Plaza Mayor, and then created a broadcast live from the  building o District Authority Office. The subject of the broadcast was the work of journalists in the available internet radio. In addition, during the meeting everyone listened to the story of a journalist who created the radio first in the prison, and then in the psychiatric hospital, and the reflections of the journalists of the available internet radio of two other radio stations. The next day, guests from Poland visited an exhibition of sacral art in the Gothic cathedral of St. Antoninus of Pamiers, who is the patron of the city.