Roads do not always lead to Rome.
Quesería La Antigua, as a friend of the University of Salamanca visited the Mil Caminos Foundationthat, if current sanitary conditions permit, it will be held on the occasion of the the first international congress on pastoralism and social inclusion and if shepherds and sheep are involved, Antigua is always present and even more so for a project with as much background as this one.
There are paths that lead to change, to reintegration, paths that lead to initiatives that seek a more just and supportive world.
Quesería La Antigua visits Casa Escuela Santiago Uno
The roads took us to the Casa Escuela Santiago Uno, where the people in charge explained to us the general lines of their day to day life. Mil Caminos is one of the many works left by Father Antonio Romo, the now mythical parish priest of Puente Ladrillo who won the Castilla y León award for Human Values and the Gold Medals of Salamanca and the province. In his eagerness to find a way out for the most disadvantaged, he founded the Puente Vida Association. It is a way of welcoming, teaching literacy and inserting people at risk of social exclusion into the labor market. The company has been providing training in different areas of the primary sector. It has been a year since Antonio Romo handed over the baton of his works to others. And Mil Caminos, which has become a Foundation, has been linked to Casa Escuela Santiago Uno, which also works with young people whose trajectory has not been easy at all.
The mission of this foundation is to promote, favor and facilitate the social integration of groups and people living in situations of risk, marginalization and social exclusion through training, education, work, culture, leisure and free time, and their involvement and solidarity in society.
Quesería La Antigua collaborates with the Shepherding Congress
After holding 6 international congresses, Quesería La Antigua could not fail to support and contribute its experience.
A special bond was soon created between the Mil Caminos Foundation and Quesería La Antigua. Synergies are felt before they are created and with them we felt them from the first minute, when they made us participate in this great project that aims to expose to public opinion the knowledge of the trades of the emptied Spain that are in danger of extinction. The shepherds, cheese artisans, become one more alternative to rural depopulation and dignify the work in the countryside and value the wealth we have.
But the Mil Caminos Foundation is much more than this congress. The road also led us to the Lorenzo Milani School, where vocational training is provided. The Environmental Education Center offers visitors “Raptor Adventures”, an outdoor tour to learn about the work done with irrecoverable birds of prey, as well as a wide range of environmental activities: organic garden, nest boxes, wildlife identification, workshops, handicrafts ….
But if the visit was fascinating for the Quesería La Antigua team, in Gomecello, where their cheese factory is located, we enjoyed it twice as much. If in La Antigua we like every cheese to have a story behind it, here that story becomes fundamental.
Visit to Mil Caminos Cheese Factory
Olivier is currently the master cheesemaker at Thousand Roads. He has been interested in making good cheese for a little less than a year. Learning and training. And yesterday he enjoyed a master class by Fernando Fregeneda, who after visiting the facilities did not hesitate to bring his knowledge to the table to help the association improve.
A flock of 600 sheep, shepherd and master cheesemaker, hand in hand, joining paths, sharing experiences and experiences.
Initiatives like this are what make the world a fairer and more united world. Reality is not always as we dreamed it would be, and we have no choice but to act and offer opportunities, our hand, that of Quesería La Antigua, is already outstretched.
