The students of 4th Primary, 5th Primary and 4th ESO of the School ‘Our Lady of Good Council’ have won the different categories of the regional phase of the 41st edition of the ONCE School Competition, an educational awareness program organized by the ONCE Social Group with the collaboration of the Ministry of Education and Professional Training and which in this edition has addressed unwanted loneliness.
The Provincial Director, Elena Fernández Treviño, who attended the center for the award ceremony this lunchtime, has highlighted this initiative that promotes awareness and work for the attention of diverse students.
Fernández Treviño has had words of thanks for the centers that have participated in this edition as well as for the students and specifically the school ‘Our Lady of Good Council’, for promoting this type of activities within its center, as well as the magnificent work that ONCE is developing.
In fact, he recalled that the agreement between the Ministry of Education and ONCE has recently been renewed and that it has been developed for 20 years, since it represents “a fundamental collaboration in attention to diversity”.
Thus, as explained by the Ministry of Education, a team is set up - made up of a teacher and a counselor - and the ONCE, in turn, puts not only the specific material that has to reach the centers to be attended to this student with visual impairment in blindness, but also provides a teacher.
League against Unwanted Loneliness
As explained by the teacher of the Unit of Educational Attention to Students with Blindness and Visual Disability of Melilla, Laura Soler, it is a national contest for all educational centers from all the stage of Primary and Secondary and that, every year, is accompanied by a different motto and that this edition has carried that of “the League against Unwanted Loneliness”.
The teacher, who has congratulated the educational centers of our city for their involvement in the different projects and contests that come out throughout the year, has valued this initiative since, any student, not only those who suffer from blindness or visual impairment, at any time can find an unwanted loneliness.
“We know that this is an extra that teachers do to raise awareness and to continue collaborating with our work,” he said and encouraged other centers in the city to participate, since “you learn a lot, you enjoy the ONCE competitions but, above all, we are all part of that league against unwanted loneliness.”
Classroom tool
For his part, the representative in the city of Melilla of the Social Group ONCE, Carlos Gordillo, has pointed out that this type of initiatives are “hangers from where they have to hang values of coexistence, values of diversity…” and that they are used by teachers in classrooms.
Thus, he recalled that in different editions bulling, inclusive recreations, unwanted loneliness were addressed… “We have been talking about a series of topics that were current at that time and the teachers who wanted to accompany us, who have been many over these 41 years, they are very good, it is a very useful tool to work on values in the class”.
Tools, he added, that help teaching professionals “deal with these issues openly in class and with total and absolute normality, and that “help coexistence and help socialize”.
That’s why, he said, “participating in the ONCE school competition is something that suits them very well, benefits them and introducing it into the curriculum is very convenient.”