The City Council of Benidorm promotes 'Voluntariat pel Valencià'

The Councilor for Culture, Ana Pellicer has presented this morning the program 'Voluntariat pel Valencià' in Benidorm, an initiative promoted by Escola Valenciana (organizers of the traditional 'Trobades per l'ensenyament en Valencià'), in collaboration with the Conselleria d'Educació , Research, Culture and Sports and the Valencian Academy of Language. The objective of this activity is to promote the social use of the Valencian language.

Pellicer was accompanied by the technical director of 'Voluntariat pel Valencià', Dariana Groza and the technique of Escola Valenciana at Marina Baixas, Marieta Soler. The head of Culture encouraged all people who wish to learn or improve the use of the language to enroll in this program for which "no academic degree is necessary, only having some time and interest to teach it."

Registration is very easy. The initial objective is to form a minimum of "ten linguistic couples" composed of a person who wants to know the language and another Valencian speaker. Over ten weeks, in one-hour sessions, these people will share experiences through the language. In this sense, Culture will make available to the participants a material in which they will find the didactic units, the notebook, the vocabulary and much more. "From the City Council - said Pellicer - we will put these people in contact" and will help them throughout the entire learning period.

Dariana Groza recalled that the program emerged in 2005 and that she was one of its first participants (she is originally from Romania). When he arrived in the Comunitat Valenciana she did not know anything about Valencian or Spanish, and thanks to the program she was able to know our language, which today dominates at the highest level. Groza highlighted the large number of residents of Benidorm who, "for different reasons, do not speak the language" and has encouraged them to participate in the 'voluntariat' because "apart from the pronouns or verbal inflection" what a language needs is "the shared emotion of using it", which is the central objective of this campaign.

For its part, Marieta Soler was "delighted that the City Council can start with the program because it was interested for a long time" and indicated that it will be a source of joy for schools in the city that every year participate in the 'trobades'.

The registration to the 'Voluntariat pel Valencià' can be done through the telephone of the Department of Culture 966 815 487 or through the website www.voluntariatpelvalencia.org.