Romana

On January 27 a benefit concert was held in Madrid for a work camp being carried out by students from Colegio Mayor Moncloa, a student residence in Madrid, in Tlapa, Mexico. The concert celebrated the 250th anniversary of Mozart’s birth. It was presented by the Chorus of Madrid’s Polytechnic University and the Academic Orchestra of Madrid.

Work camps have been organized by the Colegio Mayor Moncloa since 1983 in Poland, Rumania, Russia, Ecuador, Colombia, Bolivia, Argentina, and Mexico. The camps carry out social projects that often involve constructing or renovating schools, homes and churches, and providing classes for children and adults and various community services, in collaboration with local institutions.

Situated in the Guerrero Mountains of southwestern Mexico, Tlapa has grown in a chaotic way around a 16th century monastery, which is now a cathedral. It is an extremely poor community and the situation is even worse in the areas outside the city.

During the last work camp in Tlapa, the volunteers from Moncloa constructed three classroom buildings in the communities of San Isidro and La Angostura, staffed a summer school in San Isidro (for 40 children) and another at the clinic of the ONG MAS (80 children), visited and provided various types of service to more than 60 needy families in the district, and worked in projects of cleaning and hygiene in the San Nicolas valley and in La Hacienda.