In order to respond to the demand of their parents, three years ago they began to revolve around the future Behar Sarea Network in Bizkaia. The free time group of the Basque Association from there was often asked whether they knew Euskaldunes to teach their children in Basque or to take care of the youngest children. “Seeing that the parents had that concern, we began to invent the Behar sarea project.” This is what Garazi López de Uralde reminds us of. He is currently responsible for Behar Sarea and member of the Basque association Egizu de Getxo.
This is how it was created Beharsarea.com. From the outset, they made it clear that they cannot be limited to private classes or to job offers for the care of children, as in Basque it is not only for children and dogs. “Our goal was to reach more sectors, such as trade or hospitality. In fact, during the summer we saw signs announcing the need for the Basque servers, or similar requests, and taking into account this criterion and with the aim of promoting the Basque people, we began to develop that network of work”. The work of Behar Sarea is limited to mediation, that is, to bring in contact the people trained to work in Basque and those who need someone to work in Basque. Behar sarea is not a labour recruitment agency, so it cannot give guarantees on the working conditions offered or the job applications received, all of which are made public on its website. “We don’t know these people and we don’t know if they really are Euskaldunes, because we can’t get
into it,” afirman.El project was launched as of April 2011. During this time several decisions were made, such as that on the web you can publish ads of job offers, but that the one who is looking for employment, necessarily, will have to make his request in Basque. “What we want to ensure is that the worker is Euskaldun; in a store, for example, the use of the language will depend on the client, but to give classes or care to people, when the linguistic criterion is no longer in the other person, that the employee makes the language of exchanges the Basque language.” That encouraged Ane de Getxo, but he has confessed that, because he worked in Basque with a little bit of justice, he had enough work to understand the ads. However, he found a child who helped his three daughters do their homework in Basque. What's more, about six people were interviewed, and finally, they started with a 30-year-old boy. “We were very comfortable. He was Euskaldun and helped our daughters do their homework, because I don’t do it in Euskera, although I understand it a bit.” Ane himself has confessed to us that “it is not easy to find someone who is willing to work for a couple or three hours, especially because it is only from there that it is impossible to live. But it helps us a lot to have someone who speaks in Basque with children outside school hours, and although we know that they will not accompany us for a long time, it is to be welcomed that there is a work bag of this kind.”

Basque caretaker

Although the experience of Behar Sarea started in Getxo, since last year Alkarbide Bilgunea of the Basque services of the municipalities and communities of Bizkaia has extended the initiative to several locations: Balmaseda, Commissions, Leioa, Erandio, Bilbao, Etxebarri, Lemoa, Igorre, Durangaldea, Maruri-Jatabe and Laukiz have also entered the network. Thanks to this, for example, Ainara de Etxebarri has met a Basque girl who cares for her two children. “In the Basque service of the people I had already requested the reference of the Euskaldunes that were registered in the work bag, but since I had knowledge of the Behar Network I put the announcement there as well and they called me right away.” Ainara also recognizes that “it’s not easy to hire for a long time just a couple of hours, because it’s not enough to survive.” In addition, if appropriate, when having the day of one week in the morning and another in the afternoon, the caregiver should also perform his work in shifts. “I wanted what I was going to do as a nanny to be Basque,” Ainara tells us. “We prefer that people seeking employment know Basque and, at least in our environment, we give priority to that.” That was what encouraged Ibone from Bilbao to ask for work at the Premia. He's a monitor and he found Behar navigating the net. He has not yet received an answer, but the initiative seemed interesting, as “it is not easy to find many jobs to work on it.” Galder, from Algorta, has also registered with the Behar network. “I saw the announcement in the newspaper and at first I searched for the office, because I prefer face-to-face contacts, but in this case, as is internet management, I used that path.” According to Galder, the initiative also has a positive aspect: it is very local. “It is divided by neighborhoods, towns and districts and that gives you a point of proximity”, we dice.Las job demands like those of
Ibone and Galder and job offers like those of Ane in Getxo and Ainara in Etxebarri are the most important. As regards the demand for employment, it is also clear that the most important tasks are childcare and private schools. López de Uralde has just submitted his 2012 valuation report and they have gathered that last year a total of 125 ads were posted: 111 job applications and 14 job vacancies. In this sense, July and September are the months in which most requests are made, “because in September parents have to organize their working hours and the bus schedules of their sons and daughters, the demand also increases”. However, the next step would be to extend the Network Awards to more sectors of work, trade, hospitality and other sectors: “In our region the services sector predominates, there is no second sector, so it is difficult to get jobs from the industrial or primary sector, but that is our challenge.”