These days the Sant Pau social gym opens a new location in Plaça de la Gardunya, behind the Boqueria market. Albricias and castanets! The Raval celebrates it. After this move, the rehabilitation works of the historic headquarters of this solidarity institution in Ronda Sant Pau will be able to begin, as well as those of the social housing that will guarantee its future.
In addition, in the Gardunya the gym will be able to recover sports activity. Because this cooperative has always made sport a tool for social transformation. A lot of kids with problems vented here from their entire lives, those who applied to the institute did not have to pay the fee…
But the degradation of its infrastructures and the pandemic forced Sant Pau to close its engine room and pool, and focus all its activity on providing showers, clothing and food. They were very hard, disturbing and complicated moments.
Sant Pau became one of the bulwarks against the virus in the Ciutat Vella district. What happens is that the cooperative members were leaving their lives in it, and the alley seemed narrower every day. Ultimately, in 2021, the government of Mayor Ada Colau bought 46 of the Sant Pau round, and the horizon of the gym cleared up.
“We have just started in this location – details the address -, and we barely have ten partners -. We hope that little by little…”. People usually join the gym in September and January. “But we already contacted private institutions so that they refer people to us. I guess everything will start in September. We will continue to provide showers and offer food and clothing, of course. But our goal is to make sport our main pillar again. Social work through sport has always been the raison d’être of Sant Pau. This location is smaller, and until the works of our usual headquarters are finished we will not be able to be self-sufficient. So we are asking for help from public and private, to get ahead, as always…”.
In principle, this parenthesis in the Gardunya should last a couple of years, but the truth is that with the works you never know.
