Mar Galcerán says that she is tired of hearing people refer to people with intellectual disabilities as "little angels of God" or "eternal children". Because this 44-year-old woman from Valencia with Down syndrome has been fighting for years to "eradicate clichés, so that we are treated as people without when they look at us they only see our disability." Mar, in addition, has achieved her dream this week: she will soon be a deputy in the Valencian Parliament. "I want to fight to give visibility to people like me, that is my challenge."
Carlos Mazón, with whom she maintains a friendly relationship, placed her at number 20 on the regional lists of the last March 28 elections. She was one away from achieving it. But since then, several deputies have been called to occupy positions in the new Valencian administration of the PP and Vox, which has caused what is known as "list movement." In this regard, she insists on her gratitude to the Valencian president: "he believes in what I believe, and he has given me a great opportunity that I plan to take advantage of."
The plenary session of the Valencian executive approved on Tuesday the appointment of a regional deputy, Ernesto Fernández Pardo, as general director of the Valencian Housing and Land Entity (EVHA), an appointment that has been published in the Official Gazette of the Generalitat Valenciana (DOGV) . The deputy must leave his seat, and Mar Galcerán will replace him in a few days in the first plenary session to be held in the Corts Valencianes. She will be the first member of an autonomous parliament in Spain with Down syndrome.
This woman, a great conversationalist and active on social networks, has spent her entire life dedicated to politics. She remembers how she and she joined Nuevas Generaciones del PP when she was young to carry out political activism in favor of the party "in which I have always felt identified." She collaborated in events under the PP presidencies of Eduardo Zaplana and Francisco Camps. "I loved being at campaign events." In parallel, and "always encouraged by my mother", she dedicated herself to studying and actively collaborating with Asindown, an association of which she became president in Valencia for four years. "Even today I continue to help families and young people who ask me; I have never stopped fighting for them," she says.
"I am a woman who imposes challenges on myself," she insists. That's why she managed to become an Assistant Home Technician and an Assistant Kindergarten Technician and won a competitive exam 26 years ago. She spent 13 years as an interim in the Ministry of the Presidency of the Generalitat Valenciana and, since 2010, she held a junior position in the Ministry of Social Welfare, from where she moved to that of Equality and Inclusive Policies. Who has even been a major fallera of her commission in Valencia (she lives in the Marítim neighborhood) currently has a position in the Department of Health.
Mar Galcerán believes that society has changed, "but there is still much to do to normalize the relationship with people with intellectual disabilities." In conversation with this newspaper she points out that "the difference must be observed as a value, not as a problem." She considers that winning a seat in the Cortes "is a great success," and she hopes "to be able to be in an area that allows us to be visible and generate policies for the benefit of all these people."
