The research scholarship Pello Mari Otaño aims to investigate and disseminate Aiztondo’s Bertsolarism. Priority will be given above all to projects aimed at the study of Bertsolarism and women in Aiztondo, but also to projects or research papers on other topics aimed at the study of knowledge about orality or the oral cultural creation of Aiztondo.

A grant of EUR 3,000 will be awarded for the development of research work. The work will be forwarded by the interested parties before 2 April and the resolution will be delivered on 9 May. The researcher shall have one year to carry out his work.

Below we detail all the details of the call.

Objective "Analysis, research and analysis"

The Kilometroak project and the Mintzola Ahozko Lantegia research grant were presented on 5 February, with the support of the ikastola Zubimusu de Amasa-Villabona and the Hernandorena Cultural Association of Zizurkil. The presentation took place at the Subijana house of Amasa-Villabona, at the headquarters of the Mintzola Oral Factory, where representatives of the four institutions participated.

Beñat Gaztelumendi, from the Mintzola Oral Workshop, has begun to thank for the proposal for collaboration: "In Villabona a project was installed at the level of the Basque Country, with the objective of enriching it also for the people, and much work has been done for twelve years. We have sown and sown the seed in collaboration with different agents, have promoted various projects and research theses and have already begun to harvest"; and the Pello Mari Otaño scholarship aims to promote the research that will be added to this harvest.

"Born of the people and dedicated to the people. Kilometroak is party; bertsolarism, game. Both are interrelated and fully integrated into the Basque culture", notes Mikel Egibar de Kilometroak and adds: "Our people, the people of Euskera, must have contemporary initiatives that will help us to attract new generations. This requires study, research and analysis. With the Pello Mari Otaño scholarship we have launched, we want to respond to this objective."

The call was launched by Kilometroak and the Mintzola Oral Workshop, with the support of the Ikastola Zubimusu de Amasa-Villabona and the Hernandorena Cultural Association of Zizurkil: "Pello Mari Otaño reflects Zubimusu's values as few," explained the representative of ikastola Zubimusu, Nerea Zumeaga, at a press conference in Bilbao. "In addition, vasquism, transformation, love for the people…, the way to carry out this research grant, working together different social agents, seems to us an unbeatable example of the collaboration or community work that we so often discuss". Joxin Azkue, member of the Hernandorena Cultural Association, also recalled the work of bertsolari zizurkildarra Pello Mari Otaño: "Otaño demonstrated his qualities in the world of Bertsolaris, his abundance, his precision, his dexterity... In the opinion of expert Juan Mari Lekuona, during the twentieth century Otaño was the master who had the most influence on Bertsolarism".