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Every morning, the players of the Talentos Fútbol Club sports school begin the routine with a cleaning of the court where they then roll the ball. Although it is a closed space with mesh, it is common to find disposable packaging, bags, bottles, old shoes and other waste thrown in the synthetic grass.
This occurs in the Potrero Grande Sports Center, one of the recreational spaces in the neighborhood that bears the same name, in eastern Cali. “Cleaning took about 15 minutes. Sometimes we have to bring water to wash rills… They even leave condoms ”, says Jhon Jaider Biojó, technical director of Talentos Fútbol Club.
Zoila Valencia, president of the JAC of Potrero Grande. The discovery of the disaster is a repeated scene for the other sports or artistic groups that gather in the park. But this could be history overcome: last Friday, about 80 residents led a minga in order to recover the sports center. They picked up trash, painted murals, pruned trees and planted plants.
“The idea is that the community appropriate their spaces, that they take care of them and value them”: Zoila Valencia, president of the Potrero Grande Community Action Board.
“The idea is for the community to appropriate their spaces, to take care of them and value them,” says Zoila Valencia, president of the Potrero Grande Community Action Board. With the support of the Cali Sports Secretariat, an intervention is being planned to wash the covers and repair some broken meshes.
Since it began to consolidate in 2006 as a housing project for families living around the Cauca river jarillón, Potrero Grande has been one of the most violent neighborhoods in Cali. So far in 2020, with 56 homicides registered, the commune in which it is located ranks fourth on the city’s risk map.
“In a community with so many social deprivations, these settings become an oasis of peace”: Andrés Erazo, territorial manager.
The importance of a sports center in a neighborhood like Potrero Grande may be incalculable if it is analyzed from the privilege of other sectors. A recreational space there, as the territorial manager Andrés Erazo says, is an ‘oasis of peace’. And that oasis is very beautiful: soccer field, basketball court, bio-healthy park, toilets and showers.
“In a community with so many social deprivations, these settings become an oasis of peace. Hopefully we can increasingly involve more children and young people in sports so that they get away from bad vices. If the neighbors do not organize to take care of this sports center, it will become a land for drug use, ”explains Erazo.
Last week, the Mayor of Cali declared 17 neighborhoods on yellow alert to carry out interventions that reduce insecurity for the remainder of the year. Potrero Grande is one of them. “There we have a minor manifestation of homicides, but there are many other crimes,” says Carlos Alberto Rojas, Secretary of Security and Justice.
Reports that measure security based on homicide figures confirm that the situation in the commune has improved. Daniel Penagos, president of the Renacer del Fénix Sports Club, also believes that the violence continues to give a truce: “Sometimes we were training and there was a shootout. We had to find an escape. Now this is quiet, ”he says.
Along with 14 other athletes, Daniel has formed the wheelchair basketball club that he trains at the Potrero Grande sports center since 2018. The team, which has already won two championships at the departmental level, has been formed on a concrete field where the bleachers and dressing rooms are still a longing.
“When the groups began to play sports, people began to gain confidence. We have already become empowered”: Daniel Penagos, president of the Club Deportivo Renacer del Fénix.
“This sports center is very dirty because people don’t take care of it. Before it was dead: nobody used it. When the groups started doing sports, people began to gain confidence. We have already been empowering ourselves, ”says the president of the basketball team.
Two days after the minga, when in ordinary situations it would not be strange for the sports center to be dirty again, the benefits of commitment and teamwork were verified. A WhatsApp message from the ‘teacher’ Biojó, from Talentos Fútbol Club, confirmed the miracle: “I went to look out with my children and it is beautiful. It’s beautiful. Is it clean”.
Figure:
- More than 80 children, youth and adults participated in the minga to recover the sports center.
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