‘If by using dialogue and words we can avoid violence, many evils which are the result of not knowing how to use dialogue and words, not using it or using it improperly, we will have won and achieved a lot ', said the Castilla La Mancha regions President, Mrs. Cospedal to value this initiative of César Egido, President of the César Egido Serrano Foundation, owner of the Museum of Words and organizer of the annual contest.
In this way it has reminded the regional President, about who had his estate in the vicinity of Quero, 'the most famous of all fictional characters' of Spanish Literature, Don Quixote de La Mancha, where he was “riding on his famous horse to amend wrongs'.
Mrs. Cospedal also emphasized that the ingenious hidalgo 'was free' and added: 'we are free men who can make our own decisions and if with our decisions we choose to use dialogue, we will have achieved something very important'.
However, it has been recognized that in politics it’ is more important to know how to listen thanto know how to talk', and because of that, people dedicated to politics must be “watching to seewhat the rest of the people think”.
For this reason, it has been urged to all those attending the Ceremony to 'walk the world listening to what others say and learn from those who are near us'.
The Ambassadors of Albania, Bolivia, Colombia, Costa Rica, Croatia, Cyprus, Ecuador, Equatorial Guinea, Indonesia, Taiwan and Dominican Republic and the cultural aggregates of the embassies of Great Britain, France and United States have been some of the guests at the event.
Mrs. Cospedal had words of appreciation for the founder of the Museo de la Palabra, who is defined as a person that is generous with his time, his ideals and heritage and which has even said that it is “the impersonate of altruism”.
For its part, Egido has insisted that the purpose of theFoundation is based 'in a very simple practice, put the Word as a tool for coexistence and against all violence'. He has also defended the importance of using dialogue and its ability to unite people, whichhe has claimed responsibility of the Foundation motto: 'Wordsare the bond of humankind'.
In this second edition, the winning story was 'The soup', written by valencian writer Rosa Pastor Carballo, which was awarded $10,000.
The three consolation prizes, endowed with a thousand dollars each, have been awarded to Sonja Smolec, from Croatia, for 'Night Howl' (in English); Sherif Samir, from Egypt, for “A very old man on a bicycle” (in Arabic), and Roy Daya, from Israel, for 'One, two, three, four and five' (in Hebrew).
After receiving the award, Rosa Pastor has read the one hundred words that have earned the first prize and she has wished, that in difficult times, words such as utopia, equality, justice, and peace do not lose their sense nor lose the collective force that make them possible'.
