Nine lives honoured at the Gala del Mayor: Antonio Pérez is older person of the year

The Cabildo de Lanzarote held the Gala del Mayor 2026 on Friday 2 October at the Casa Museo Monumento al Campesino: nine awards to people and projects working with and for the island's older residents. Families and associations filled the room.

The nine awards

• Antonio Pérez — Mayor del Año, the main prize
• ASOMAVO, the association from Tías
• Paseos Saludables — best active project
• Trinidad García Hernández — the award for a carer
• the Centro de Día Isla de los Volcanes
• Agustina María García, of AFA Lanzarote — professional award
• 'Cuentos de los Abuelos Canarios', the project collecting grandparents' stories
• EMERLAN — solidarity category
• the Charlemos programme — the inclusion award

What these names say, read together

Lined up, the nine awards map out fairly accurately where the real work is: a carer honoured in her own name, because looking after older people still falls largely on individual people; a project of walks, because the cheapest way to keep an older person well is to get them out of the house; and Charlemos, a programme that keeps company with those at risk of being left alone — the problem least talked about and heaviest in practice.

The project 'Cuentos de los Abuelos Canarios' does the other half of the job: it does not look after older people, it listens to them. It gathers what they know and passes it to the young, and in doing so holds together a link between generations that frays quickly on an island.