After 3 years in Zambia, Elena has returned to Spain to stay, leaving there a new family, numerous friends and innumerable experiences. Meanwhile, KUBUKA is preparing to receive her with open arms and a lot of desire at the headquarters in Madrid.

Elena has been Co-founder of Más Por Ellos, Founder of KUBUKA, Vice President, Project Coordinator, Volunteer Coordinator, companion, friend and even «mother» of many. Essential part of a team that today wants to dedicate these words:

«They tell how long ago an eighteen-year-old girl arrived in Zambia, Elena. There, after a while, she was received in a town called Mwandi, where she made a good friend with Joyce, director of the school place and several children in that school.

When it was time to go back to Spain, she decided to sponsor those children so that they could do secondary school. And after doing a long university career, during which he spent seasons in Kenya and Zambia, Elena, already grown, came back to stay a long time.

Thus, with four friends who went with her, they formed KUBUKA in Zambia. When the five of them arrived, Joyce had retired, and when asked what she was going to do, she said: «I was waiting for you».
And our beloved Elena was called Mutinta, which in Tonga means «the first to arrive». She stayed in Zambia for three years.

During that time she had adoptive parents and new friends. They have been incredible years but also hard and hard work. Three years lived with passion, understanding, dedication, fatigue, affection and empathy for her, Mutinta.

And for that, dear Elena, all the people that make up the team today, together with those who formed it at some point and those who have passed through Zambia and have known you, we tell you to the beat: THANK YOU.

Thank you for being a friend and sister to many, for being fun and nice, and for knowing how to say things. And, above all, infinite thanks for being such a worker and for your dedication. Because without you KUBUKA would not have become what it is today and because it is a real pleasure to rub shoulders with such people. Thank you for being in Zambia, spending sleepless nights doing accounts, documents and a long etcetera. For learning things from scratch always thinking about the benefit of the NGO, for working so much for the growth of each project, and for being so close to the locals, thus gaining their trust. Thank you because, when you come to Madrid, you continue dedicating 24 hours a day to this great project. For the eternal days in which you linked one meeting with another and so on until the end of the day. Thank you for believing in KUBUKA and in us.

In short … THANK YOU for having this passion and vocation in life. Thank you for deciding, in each difficult moment, to move forward. For teaching us all to be an essential pillar in KUBUKA. »  – Casilda Cernuda

«You can not understand KUBUKA without the figure of Elena. Her work in the shade from Zambia is what has allowed us to have all our projects working today. Her positivism and energy have been the cornerstone that has borne the weight of many difficulties, which has prevented projects from falling or people surrendering.
From Spain we have always felt their support and availability, always ready to listen and give a different point of view to the dilemmas that were emerging. Elena has managed to get a permanent connection from land to Spain that motivates us to get the best out of our work from here because we see a tangible end there.
During these three years that I have been part of KUBUKA, Elena has been a great example and reference for me within the NGO, and will continue to be for its capacity of sacrifice and delivery.

We know that you still have much to contribute to this great family now that you close a very beautiful stage of your life and start a new one.

Thank you Elena for building and continuing to build KUBUKA. » – Valle

Have you gone? I ask myself that question every day. I keep coming into the house with the illusion of finding you, sitting in our bed and letting go a thousand questions like a submachine gun that you can not stop. Talk about a thousand things; projects, volunteers, documents, administrative issues and what made everything more special, about my life. Because if someone knew how to give me advice at that time it was you.

It is difficult to know if someone has left when I still see you in a thousand places; in Zam-Mex food, in 105 sponsored children, in every ball that flies through the fields of Mwandi, in the carrots of the garden, in the bricks of the school of Kasiya, in the face of all the volunteers and even in that hole in which a rainy day you fell.

Because here are all your dreams, each and every one of your choices of the last 9 years, your joys, your thoughts, your anger, your tears, your headaches, your commitment, your strength, your dedication. You have given everything and more for this NGO.

Thanks is the least I can tell you. I know that you do not like being the protagonist, that you always say that it is not you who is KUBUKA, that he is not a person who is a team, and I agree.

Nine years ago you decided to come to Zambia, a country that almost certainly did not know where it was. I bet an arm that at that time you were not aware of what you were going to achieve over time. You always say that thanks to Joyce appeared in your life you have achieved what you have achieved, but thanks to you appeared in yours, KUBUKA is what it is.

I know how many times you have not been able to sleep wondering if you were really doing something, if things were changing, if it was worthwhile to keep trying. And I know because it keeps happening to me, but today I can say that you can go calmly, that you have set the bar very high and that even if it is not, you can see results and you have to be proud.

Never forget what you have achieved, what you have achieved with only 28 years, and the lives that you have changed. Keep fighting for what you want and for what you know is worth it because nobody here forgets you. » – Sofia