Some good news has just been announced for the Historical Memory movement in Cádiz province: the Diputación de Cádiz has upped its budget for projects in this field in 2024 to a total of 400,000 euros. The decision was announced by Javier Vidal, deputy vice-president of the organisation, at a press conference and he explained that the money would be used for a number of different projects, including grants for some local associations.
He also said the Diputación is keen to organise workshops on Democratic Memory for secondary school pupils, similar to those which already exist on subjects such as environmental education and have proven very successful.
Vidal also said the search for mass graves containing victims of Francoist repression will continue in Cádiz this year, with a budget just over 21,000 euros, and these projects are expected to be carried out in Villamartín, Prado del Rey, Algodonales and El Gastor.
The amount of money assigned for democratic memory research projects is also higher this year: 48,000 euros will be used in 2024 to fund eight projects researching repression and social control in the province of Cádiz during the Civil War and the subsequent Francoist regime.
In 2023 six historians and writers were beneficiaries of similar grants: José Manuel Algarbani (a project about disciplinary units), Santiago Moreno (a study into repression in San José del Valle), Ángel Medina (an exhaustive work on repression in the Sierra de Cádiz), Fernando Sígler (a study into social and union movements in the Sierra), Juan Miguel León Moriche (a project documenting the repression in the Campo de Gibraltar area) and Rubén Benítez (educational material on women who suffered repression and were silenced).
All this material can be found on the Diputación de Cádiz website.
Javier Vidal also explained that the University of Cádiz will be collaborating with the Diputación on two specific projects: the creation of a platform through which people can access the digitalised files of the War Committees and the establishment of a Democratic Memory chair at the university.