Donostia-San Sebastian. Aimara came to the Basque Country when she was just a year old from Colombia with her parents and her brother. She came to Donostia at just over a year old and this is where she saw the ocean for the first time. The family was able to settle with the help of the Red Cross who opened the door to them and provided them the opportunity to educate their children at the Koldo Mitxelena Ikastola in Errenteria. “I studied everything in Basque and soon I learned it,” she smiles.
Integration and the language may become a big obstacle for many families coming from other countries, however, this family adapted naturally thanks to the disposition of the parents.
“When the support program from the Red Cross ended, we moved to the Gaztaño neighborhood in Errenteria. This is an area where a lot of Basque is spoken, and my children served as an important bridge with the neighbors so that we could stay on top of the different activities and initiatives that were going on. They would translate what we couldn’t understand,” her dad explained.
“My characteristics are from elsewhere, but inside I am from here,” she told journalist Jorge Napal, who she told “I would like to study psychology to help others. I would like to find a job that would pay enough so that my parents wouldn’t have to work.” (See the article in Spanish in Noticias de Gipuzkoa).
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