Montse Juvanteny, champion of education, eternally young of 79 years, promoter of the foundation that bears her name and other initiatives in defense of children, with which she has given conferences before the Parliament of Catalonia, the Judicial School or the Council General of the Judiciary, is used to telling truths that seem revolutionary and that “are actually matters of common sense.”
She was a pioneer of sex education in religious schools in the 1960s and an early supporter of co-ed summer camps. “Boys and girls?” they said. “Won't they live together as adults?” she responded. Her work was also a spearhead when it came to reserving places for these leisure activities for warded or vulnerable young people. Boys and girls, yes. And children of the bourgeoisie and shantytowns.
She is the mother of ten children, “I love them all, but I only gave birth to three: I defend foster care and I wanted to lead by example.” One of her greatest satisfactions was seeing the daughter of a Banesto executive and a nephew of Juan José Moreno Cuenca, El Vaquilla, a well-known juvenile delinquent from Transition Spain, play on the same team. “And nothing ever happened: when children are allowed to be children nothing ever happens.”
Its last revolutionary truth is that in bullying, more than the harassed and the harassers, “there are victims and perpetrators, and both need help: they are all children.” The usual response until recently, however, was for those harassed to be re-victimized and transferred to another center, where they were punished to start from scratch again, "as if they were to blame for everything that happened."
“If in cases of broken families, the mother or father paid us, the judges might think that our expertise was a proposal from one party.” The unit has managed to reopen cases filed due to lack of evidence or alleged parental alienation (the conspiracy of one parent against another). “We are not seeking a conviction so much as reparation. Because if the abuse that such a boy or girl reported is true, they need it. And if they invented it, too.”
It was said before that Montse Juvanteny, tireless in defending children at risk of exclusion, promoted a foundation with her surname. Her last name, not her first name. Because the full details of the entity are the Concepció Juvanteny Foundation. And to explain the reason you have to travel to the past. Montse was born into a large, very humble and religious family, in Joanetes, near Olot, in the Garrotxa region of Girona.
There were 14 brothers (of whom fortunately six are still alive). The parents, Lluís and Coloma (he, a bricklayer and farmer; she, an orchestra woman and housewife), wanted the best education for all their children, although they could not afford luxuries. A school of nuns, aware of their plight, offered to accept two of the little girls free of charge. The chosen ones were Montse herself and Pilar, aged nine and ten.
Montse is very grateful because thanks to that private school she was able to study Teaching, but in reality the nuns did not want two boarders gratis et amore, but two maids. The sisters got up an hour before the rest of the girls, the rich ones, and prepared the dining room tables. When the others went to the yard to play, they stayed behind picking up the plates and tablecloths, doing tasks inappropriate for their age.
The injustices and love that permeated her home made her grow up with the certainty that all boys and girls should have the same rights, regardless of their origin and beliefs. Therefore, when she started working at a religious school in Barcelona, the first thing she did was eliminate the obligation for other girls like her (those who paid the lowest fees) to clear the dining room tables.
“From now on, those tasks will be done in rotating order,” he said. The nuns were scared: “The parents won't want to.” Nor, they thought, would they want their daughters to be openly talked about about sexual education and to be prepared for their first menstruation. But she got her way. Those girls were worried that others would notice. And she answered them bluntly: “Why? I have my period today. Do you notice anything about me?”
He will soon turn 80 years old, but his eyes still exude the same youthful rebellion. And the same gratitude. That is why the foundation is called Concepció Juvanteny, in homage to one of her older sisters, Conxita, who took care of her like a second mother when Coloma, her real mother, had to stay with her husband, hospitalized for a long time due to a work accident that almost cost him his life.
The AIDA unit is a branch of the Fundación Concepció Juvanteny, but not the only one. In reality, the foundation is not a tree, but a forest. The first seed was Asteroid B-612 (the celestial body from The Little Prince, by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry). This association manages residences for babies, minors and young people supervised by the Generalitat. It has three, in the regions of Barcelonès, Maresme and Vallès Oriental.
The ideal is for the little ones to return to their parents, their blood family or a foster family. Adoption is only considered in extreme cases, when other options have been ruled out. Some young people, however, remain under guardianship until they come of age and receive help to enter the workforce and reach the age of 18 with enough savings to take the first steps into adulthood.
The Juvanteny forest has sheltered thousands of boys and girls since 1983: therapeutic centers, shelters, training, diagnosis, job placement,... Montse Juvanteny, who relies on her daughter Emília and another Montse, Montse Reixach, shows the self-portrait of a victim of abuse who has been helped. She is a great artist, but she wanted to draw a smile and it didn't work out. “I'm not used to smiling,” she said.
