The teacher of Rosario who overcame the difficulties and surprised the world

Cristina Gómez Centurión, teacher at Rosarina, finalist of the Global Teacher Prize, best known as the Nobel Prize winner for Education, will travel to Dubai tomorrow to participate in the final phase of the award. It was selected from 10,000 teachers in 179 countries. He works in two marginal schools in Rosario, where he innovates with clbades via mobile phones. She never imagined that she could be recognized for her work. His journey was not easy, however, his pbadion, his curiosity and his desire to improve were his unstoppable engine.

In addition to teaching, she is wife and mother. She has three children, one of them has received two kidney transplants and the youngest is suffering from Down syndrome.

The path of Gómez Centurión was not easy. In 2001, he had to emigrate to Spain because of the economic crisis and start all over again. A decade later, he was able to return and work in two schools in very marginal areas of the city, where boys could not buy books. He used technology. All your efforts, efforts and contagious spirit will be rewarded in Dubai.

This smiling and petite woman studied in Rosario, but her first job was in Neuquén, where she moved to live for family reasons. She worked as a teacher at the National University of Comahue. His second son was born. In a few months, he contracted hemolytic uremic syndrome, a disease that seriously affected his kidneys and changed his life for everyone.

A few months later, the child needs daily dialysis and very close controls, forcing Cristina to move with her husband and two children to Buenos Aires. A new move.

"For me, teaching has always been a pbadion and the truth is that my career was the most important, but the illness of my son made me change, his life was in danger," he said. at an open dialogue with Capital shortly after his trip. in Dubai, something that he still can not believe.

His son had to be dialyzed every two hours. She became a full-time nurse. "We used to take turns relaying with my husband, Nestor, and he finally created a machine that did not exist in Argentina for dialysis at home." It was a difficult year, but it was worth it, "she recalls enthusiastically.

For five years, Cristina cared for her son carefully until the child reached the appropriate weight and age for the transplant. "His father donated his kidney and he was able to live for 15 years, until the operation was repeated," he says.

While taking care of his son, he started doing his bachelor's thesis. That was his earth wire. And by adding those hours, he managed to do a specialized job in economic history. He returned gradually to re-enter the workplace. In addition to clbad hours, he worked in Buenos Aires with the NGO Conscience and designed the educational maintenance of United Nations programs for students, which he then brought to Rosario.

At that time, the country was going through a new economic crisis. It was in 2001 and Cristina already had her third daughter, born with Down syndrome and severe heart disease.

"I had two children with huge health problems, we had no drugs and there was very little work.I had parents in Spain and we decided to leave", he says, recalling the cost of uprooting.

For 10 years they lived in Santiago de Compostela. There, he found a job in several women's and immigrant NGOs. "At that time, we had to reopen my son, I needed another kidney, we were studying, but we could not donate and we had to wait for a deadly donor," recalls he.

"We wanted to go back, our family was missing, we had friends, we were heartbroken, because my eldest son had already returned and my mother and my mother-in-law needed us," she says. That's what led them to make the decision to come back, but this time to Rosario.

Upon his return to his hometown, he found a job at Santa Margarita School, in Güiraldes 400 bis, in the heart of Villa Manuelita, where he began his professional career in teaching.

There, he discovered another world, where his students had serious problems and where it was impossible to have books to study. He ran campaigns to equip the library, but then decided to do something different.

L & # 39; idea

"Everyone had a cell phone and it was hard not to be used in clbad, so I thought it would have to be put in place." When I told them we were going to use them, the boys could not believe it, they became addicted! "

The first thing he did was to build the blog: profecristinablog.com and download all the material so that the children could learn, see the cards, interact and even create.

And he says that, for example, in an art history clbad that can not get children to work in the area, he asked them to take pictures with the cell phone wherever they are. "They came back with incredible pictures that helped us talk about Rosario's architecture," she says enthusiastically.

Last year, she received a visit from foreign authorities who told her that she had been selected to receive the highest prize in education, along with another Argentine teacher and 48 other teachers from different parts of the world. He still can not believe that someone has noticed his work not only at the national level, where after the announcement of the Global Teacher Prize, he has received countless awards, but also at the same time. international scale.

Excited, and almost with a foot in the plane to travel to Dubai, clarifies that in reality the greatest satisfaction is given by their students, when they are defeated.