Angie, the woman with ALS who transformed her fragility into hope.

The Norwegian intellectual and prelate of Trondheim, Erik Varden, stated in a revealing interview with Our Time in the summer of 2024, what may be the "cotton test" of human maturity, when he said: "The more time passes, the more convinced I am that to know if someone is acquiring wisdom..., you have to see if they are able to live in peace while being vulnerable". A clear example of a person who has accepted her limitation with serenity is Angie, who suffers from ALS and is responsible for three children. She lives on rent and has been the inspiration behind a project that helps families at risk of exclusion. 

Who is Angie?

Angie is a young engineer who settled in Vallecas with her family in March 2020, fleeing Venezuela, in the run-up to the great confinement of Spain by COVID-19. 

If it was already complicated to emigrate in times of pandemic, the situation worsened in April 2020 when a cruel disease as cruel as Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) appeared without knocking at Angie's door. It was a hard blow for the whole family and friends, at that moment it began to show clearly, that Angie was not going to let herself be discouraged. Her convictions made her reconfigure her life. This brought her family a lot of peace in moments of discouragement and a great joy, it became a blessing this limitation, although it seems a contradiction, because it brought out the best in her.

 He showed them that, as Marian Rojas says, happiness is not in what happens to us, but in how we interpret what happens to us. He was able to be happy and make his people happy. 

She discovered that in the midst of pain she could be a light bulb for many. As the psychiatrist also says: "If you know what you want, what you long for, your mind will show you the way more clearly". And so it was that Angie, without wanting it or drinking it, focused her mission: in her vulnerability she could help others. 

Shortly after, in December of that year, he met his Spanish friends when he participated in a solidarity dinner with his family, organized by the parish of San Raimundo de Peñafort (Entrevías). There he met the "Javieres", the "Marisas", Juan Ramón, Enrique,... They were the volunteers who prepared the dinner and what in time became a second family was born.

Birth of the Angie Project

They decided to organize themselves to help this Venezuelan family. They made a model shopping list, to be replicated with variations, organized shifts and distributed themselves to go monthly to do the shopping and take it home. In these endearing encounters, in which the visitors ended up edified and the visited ones delighted, everyone won. This continued over time and the second family expanded.  

The visits to Angie's house continued and in September 2021 her friends thought, what if we helped more families like Angie, in the same way; doing a little shopping as a family and bringing family warmth to those houses? And so it was that they returned to San Raimundo de Peñafort, where Juanjo, the parish priest, "lent" another second family to be helped. Then Pablo, in San Emilio (La Elipa), provided more families to be part of the project. Then, Jesús and Lorena introduced them to pregnant mothers with few resources... At that time the project was sponsored by the foundation Amigos de Monkole under the name of Proyecto Angie, open to the collaboration of anyone who wants to, as explained in their web.

Amigos de Monkole is focused on aid to the Congo, but has some projects in Spain, such as this one. As Enrique Barrio, director of the foundation, says, poverty is here and there, and many few make a "lot". So, although aid in Africa is very necessary, it is necessary everywhere. Marisa Lara and Toñi Sáez, coordinators of the Angie Project, speak of this gratifying reality, affirming that volunteers who contemplate vulnerability are more comforted than those who are helped, although it may seem to be the other way around.