"The most important thing is to rescue and build the disabled person."

Related"The Church's work with people with disabilities is not new."Caring for people with disabilities: a perspective on the meaning of life.

Sources from the World Health Organization (WHO) estimate that more than one billion people in the world, 15 percent of the population, have a disability. In Spain, this figure is around 10 percent, including all existing disabilities; in other words, around four million people. This is an important segment of the population, many of them elderly, although not all of them.

In this area, many Omnes readers will have heard about Fraterthe Fraternidad Cristiana de Personas con Discapacidad de España, a specialized movement of Catholic Action born in 1957, integrated in the Federación de Movimientos de Acción Católica de la Iglesia en España, and member of the Intercontinental Christian Fellowship of people with chronic illnesses and physical disabilities.

Frater, focused on the field of physical and organic disability, lives its evangelizing task with intensity. It is currently spread throughout 39 Spanish dioceses, with presence in almost all the autonomous communities, and has more than 5,000 members in Spain, according to its website. It is part of the area of Pastoral de la Salud de la Conferencia Episcopal Española (Spanish Episcopal Conference)and, at the civilian level, it belongs, as a statewide association, to the Spanish Confederation of People with Physical and Organic Disability (COCEMFE), cocemfe.es/ the most important social organization that brings together people with physical and organic disabilities in our country.

Together with the collective of people with disabilities, Frater seeks to achieve a fairer and more inclusive society where human rights for people with disabilities are fulfilled. In June 2017, after the Assembly held in Segovia, some media headlines read: Enrique Alarcón, first man in history to preside Frater Spain. Alongside him, as General Councilor, was Antonio García Ramírez. In effect, Basilisa Martín Gómez left the presidency, and with her, her general team also ceased.

Today, after four years at the helm of Frater, Omnes talks to Enrique Alarcón, who now lives in Albacete and has been with the Fraternity for 43 years. Frater's president was involved in a traffic accident "just when I turned 20, and I have a cervical injury, tetraplegia, and I need assistance. Once I'm in the chair, in the motor, I'm free, but I need assistance to get up. But once I'm in the chair, who can stop us," he says with good humor. Alarcón talks about "what we learn at Frater throughout our lives.

Tell us about Frater. What are your tasks, your challenges...

̶ Frater, by its very essence, is aimed at people with physical, sensory and organic disabilities. In other words, our starting point is not to attend to all disabilities. We understand that personal development is what can enable us, covering our capabilities, motivating the person to assume different perspectives in the face of this new existence that arises, whether the disability is the result of a traumatic situation that occurs throughout life, or if it comes from childhood, it is important that the person is discovering the whole universe of capabilities that we have as people to enable a new way of being and living in a new way, so to speak.

When a person faces disability, either in a traumatic way or from childhood, there comes a time when there is a turning point, where one thinks about where I come from and where I am going, and what I have to do. Another thing is the necessary technical resources.

Frater works fundamentally so that the person is first recognized in his or her dignity. Discovering that he or she is a person with all his or her dignity. A second step is to provide tools and resources for the person to open up to the world, from a cultural, social, educational perspective, and later on, to help them enter the labor market, academically, etc.

How do they do it, how does this process take place in the person?

-All of this is produced through slow, very laborious processes, through the teams, which we call life and training teamsThe aim is not only to provide tools so that a person can be in society, know how to go to the Administration, move in an urban environment, etc., but also to ensure that the person has the necessary personal autonomy to consider leaving his or her own existence, even if it means resorting to all the elements and technical resources that he or she will need.

In this perspective, Frater works in the field of physical and organic disabilities. There are mental disabilities, intellectual disabilities, guardianship... We do not have guardianship, because what we do is to awaken within the person the self-awareness that you are the one who has to find your own resources to seek your personal autonomy.

So, the tasks of the teams are made possible in the first moments. We are not going to make a first contact with a person who has had an accident and has been left in a wheelchair, or who has a chronic illness, and who has also been left with a disability. The processes begin first with the encounter, the listening, the accompaniment?

Then comes the second step, which is the invitation or suggestion from the same person you contact. Hey, who are you, where are you, and what do you do in your Association? And you see that a person needs something more: hey, do you want to come, we are having a get-together, and do you know us? Then it is when little by little, each person has his own process, through that moment, a person can be integrated into a team, which we call "teamwork". life and training teamsand in these teams, we have a systematized and structured training plan, which we call steps.

Each person has his or her own process, through that moment, a person can be integrated into a team, which we call life and formation teams.

Enrique Alarcón

You talk about achieving a fairer and more inclusive society. What exactly do you mean?

-The training plan opens up perspectives and a focus on what the person is at a psychological level, how society works, its basic elements, associationism, the importance of the fact that we are nothing on our own... Society is built when as citizens we assume that we have a responsibility. It is not just that I have rights; we have rights and we have duties. We are citizens and we live in community, and we all have responsibilities. We have to discover what those responsibilities are.

Because the important thing is, in fact, to be living and discovering the perspective of inclusion.. I am a member of the society, an active member, I am in it, and everything I work for is to improve society. I propose the elimination of architectural barriers, and I do it not because I want them to remove that little step, but because we need a friendlier society, thinking of the elderly, who have mobility problems, of a lady who goes with her stroller, because aesthetically there is a better quality of life in an urban environment that facilitates it. Thus, in the training groups, a global approach is made so that the person discovers his reality and the world in which he lives.

How did you get to know Frater, at what point in your life, and what attracted you most to it?

-There is a very important part in Frater, which is a Christian movement. From the first steps in formation, Frater will teach a person who has an education, a first contact with the faith, and then it is easier. Otherwise, questions arise, because Frater does not exclude anyone because he or she is not a Christian. First and foremost, there is the figure of Jesus.

I myself, for example, had no formation, apart from what it is to be an altar boy or a basic Christian education, I did not have a greater Christian vision. When I was 21 years old, I was invited to Frater, a girl, I went and I found that there was no feeling of sadness, but that everything was a party, joy, communication, basically joy. And then I was invited to a gathering. And I see that there is a Eucharist. So I stay. And suddenly I hear talk of a Jesus that sounded like Chinese to me. Well, who are they talking about? I had never heard such talk about Jesus. They were talking about a living Jesus, a man-God, but inside the tribe human, from the suffering, accompanying the pain, compassionate, merciful, and that the motto we have in Frater told you: get up, stop lamenting, that the world is waiting for you to do your task, and you discover that your task is an evangelizing task, and that your role in the world and in the Church is the response to that motivation that the Holy Spirit has generated in you, through the encounter with Jesus Christ.

Perhaps you could comment on the distinction of tasks and approach in an association such as COCEMFE and what is carried out in Frater, which is Catholic Action.

-In the whole process we've been talking about, and which is taking place from the first steps, the first approaches, is where Frater's identity is being generated. I am also president in Castilla-La-Mancha of COCEMFE, the most important organization in Spain and in the world in terms of physical and organic disabilities, in which Frater is also integrated, like other organizations. We have one hundred associations in the region. What a person with a disability in the region is looking for is that with a specific percentage of disability, I have the right to certain things. Well, they are informed of the rights, what the Administration makes available to a person with a disability. And then, I can ask: are you interested in working? Well, here we have some training courses, we have some workshops, a job bank ..... And apart from these things, this person, at most, if he/she has another motivation, he/she can become a member, belong to the board of directors, etc.

What does Frater do? Frater is a place, a place to meet with life.

Where the person discovers that he or she is listened to in depth, where a silence has the same value as a word. Cultivating silence, cultivating the word, being close to those who suffer, accompanying their lives, is not simply a matter of providing services. We have residences in various places in Spain, but the most important task is to rescue and build the person, and together we rescue each other. And together we build ourselves. And together we discover the inspiring power of the Holy Spirit. And together we discover our apostolic task.

An exciting anecdote

-Frater is specialized Catholic Action. Our characteristic is militant. To give you an idea. You recently attended the national assembly of COCEMFE, where you received an award and a tribute for your 40 tasks of inclusive work. And in the last Frater general committee we had, I commented on something, because it moved me. At the COCEMFE assembly, we were the provincial and regional heads. At one point, a person from a region, who was not from Frater, asked to speak and said: I want Frater's work to be recognized, because thanks to this movement we have achieved social recognition and what we have achieved, because Frater was at the root of the entire associative movement and Frater was there.

I didn't expect that, and it's true. Because we have tried to get out of the comfort zone, how nice we are all together. No, no. Human promotion and social promotion, and above all, the call to evangelize, that is fundamental. Our mentality of being transformers of reality is always implicit. That is why, as this woman was saying, all of us in Frater are involved in different ways in the associative movement throughout Spain, promoting projects, tasks, encouraging social actions...

Our social commitment. We are not going to carry out other social actions that are beyond our physical limitations, but we can be in a city council, as a councilor; in an association, running a secretariat about anything; being in the street and denouncing, when the campaigns of the International Day of Disability come, or any other campaign that is done. Frater is always on the street denouncing, just as it is always advertising.

I hear him speak and I am reminded of Pope Francis, who encourages us to get out of our comfort zone....

-I wish I could. What an infatuation we have with Pope Francis today. In Frater, we have always wanted to be out of our comfort zone. We want to reach out to others, to the suffering person where they are. We don't wait for them to come. For example, how did I grow up in Frater? After a year and a bit of being in Frater, I started to accompany people. The truth is that they were almost all girls who contacted me. And I started going with them (two of them had cars). And where did we go? For example, I heard that a boy from such and such a village had had an accident and was left in a wheelchair. We would go to the village, look for him, and chat at his house.

And what did the relatives say? What were the conversations like?

-The father and the mother might comment: poor thing, where is he going to go, he's a mess... And we had injuries. Some of us, like me, had injuries not only in our feet, but also in our hands... What we did was to try to convince the parents that he was a person who had to overcome his situation, and that they were fundamental for that process. It was all about motivating and educating the parents a lot, making them see...

–But if you can't get out of bed? 

-First, he doesn't have to be in bed, because the injury he has is paraplegia, and in bed he will get bedsores [ulcers], it's the worst thing you can do. 

-And where will it go?

-Man, if you don't fix the bathroom or remove the two steps inside the house, and another big one to get out, where do you want me to go? You'll have to make the environment suitable.

And if at any time they had to ask for help, one was arranged.

It was a very hard task many times. Sometimes they wanted to throw us out of the houses or they didn't want to open up to us. But in other cases, very, very many [Enrique emphasizes the "very many"], in the end the person..., Frater was fulfilled: he or she got up, ended up promoting himself or herself on a social and human, cultural, educational level... And maybe then he or she didn't appear in Frater, but we don't care. What we were looking for, and what we are looking for, is to rescue the person. And we were in a village for several days, or we went to the Paraplegic Hospital in Toledo, because we found out that a girl from a village in La Mancha was there, and something happened to her. We go to help the parents, to inform them, to accompany the girl and then to accompany her in the first processes.

This is Fater's task. As the founder himself said, Fr. FrancoisFrater's task is to go where the suffering is, where the pain is, to be there, to be present. It is true that we are not going to remove the disability, nor the pain. But suffering can be released. And one of the great tasks is to put light where there is darkness, to encourage, to give hope, sometimes a joke, sometimes to talk about anything. Or simply to listen to the silence.

We have been talking for quite a while now. Soon you will have the XI Frater Week in Malaga, under the motto The City was filled with JoyWill there be a renewal of positions and will you run for reelection?

-As a result of all this mess [he speaks of the pandemic], we had to suspend many things. And at the end of August we have Frater Week in Malaga. From August 30 to September 5, at the diocesan house in Malaga. We want to create a welcoming environment, a very close space. We will have several workshops. We will also hold the general assembly there. I would prefer a new team. After four years, it is always good to have a renewal. But experience also tells us that after four years it is difficult for a new team to emerge all at once. Teams usually tend to stay for another year or two. In this case, as I have been a bit sick these two years, I asked for at least part of the team to be renewed.

Is he now more recovered?

-Yes, these are things that are not so serious, but they condition your mobility a lot. In any case, both the General Councilor and I have taken things on board. We have to be honest. After a year and a half in which we have not been able to meet face-to-face, with all the difficulty that this has meant, to the point that it is almost a miracle that the teams have been able to keep going, and the teams have been maintained. Some teams have even grown. A great deal of creativity and originality has developed, for example in the Canary Islands and elsewhere. The monthly meetings, the general coexistence, has been done by whatsapp! Not everyone could do it by videoconference.

A final note about the pandemic in disabled people...

-A big concern at Frater when the pandemic arrived was what happened to the most vulnerable people, who had not left their homes much before, or were in residences, people who were in hospitals, in the worst situation. They could not be reached. Those of us who have our own family are different. But people who are usually alone... Because one of the dramas of the great disability, whether physical or organic, is loneliness. Loneliness is fierce. The loneliness was joined to the grip of fear, the absence of medical check-ups, controls, rehabilitation, etc. All that was cut off.

One of the dramas of the great disability, whether physical or organic, is loneliness.

Enrique Alarcón

Many people have worsened during this time because of having suspended treatments, rehabilitation, clinical follow-up, etc. We have tried to solve this and to overcome the situation with videoconferences, Skype calls, whatsapp calls, non-stop phone calls, etc. The people at Frater were able to react quickly. I was surprised. We even communicated more during the pandemic than before the pandemic....

Related"The Church's work with people with disabilities is not new."Caring for people with disabilities: a perspective on the meaning of life.