Rocío Lanzat is seventeen years old, and a couple of weeks ago she began attending classes in the metalworking school of the Antonio Ramos workshop in the Municipal Institute for Training and Employment. Without being fully conscious of it, she and her companions - all fifty of them - will become part of the history of Malaga Cathedral. She will be working on various parts of the building, from banisters and seats to ironwork on balconies and general restoration work. Rocío is looking forward to her time here, even if she is still somewhat overawed by the prospect of being partly responsible for the conservation of such a historic building, just as her class mates are. Almost all of them failed to finish secondary school, and would find it hard to get decent jobs in any other area. This is their last and best opportunity in life, and all are determined to succeed. They know they have few other options.

The building housing the workshop on Calle San Rafael is old, and Manolo Caballero, the carpentry teacher, speaks to his pupils. “This is a long distance race,” he tells them. “There will be many obstacles along the way, but getting there depends on your own ambition. Some will make it and some will not. To be successful and qualify, you will have to take night classes in the school,” he says. The talk of ambition and dedication makes it seem more like an episode of Fame than a class for a group of young people from Malaga city learning a trade. One of them, seventeen-year-old Juan Manuel Peralta, makes a joke about night classes, asking if he will have to sleep in the school, but Manolo is in no mood for humour. “The classes will be in the evenings,” he repeats, “and you are all expected to work very hard in them.”

They will spend the first six months learning manual dexterity before moving on to learn how to use the heavy machinery used to shape wood. The third phase is spent learning more about the actual work to be done in the cathedral. “When you have children you’ll bring them here and point to places around this building, and say to them: ‘This is the part I worked on,’” Manolo says to his pupils.

The smoke from the metalworking shop permeates the corridors. It smells of a mixture of pine resin, iron oxide and oil, which is the paste used, when heated, to provide the hardness necessary for the metal to be cut and formed, we are told by the workshop manager, Fernando Ramos. It is he who is showing us around, and for him this is a dream made into reality. He knows these young people, and knows how important it is for them to be here and to finish the course they have started. He also knows that for almost all of them, this is their last chance.

“We had two underage children here last year who had been in trouble with the law on various occasions in the past. One of them dropped out. We do what we can to keep them interested, but they must also rely on their own willpower,” says Fernando while watching Virginia Gómez finish a drawing. She is certainly interested in the work she does here. “I would love to restore something used in the Holy Week processions,” she says.

“I chose metalworking because I love doing work normally done by a man,” says Nora García, while her classmates laugh. Some prefer jewellery-making, but most want to learn how to work metal. Their teacher, José Ramón Bravo, assures us that many of them are qualified enough to work in foundries.

They start with drawing classes and then move on to learn the techniques of metalworking. This includes cutting and shaping metal, welding, and silver plating. Learning to repair or restore one of the ornate seats used in processions or the crown of a statue takes two years and a great deal of hard work.

The embroidery classroom is bright and airy, because this delicate and intricate work requires plenty of light. The teacher, Manuel Mendoza, begins by teaching drawing techniques, which is an essential discipline in all crafts. Estefanía Ferre is 22 years old and left school before her final year. Here she will be given support classes to enable her to finish her secondary school studies. Her teacher, Manolo, gives her lessons in art, art history and embroidery. When she finishes, she will be in a position to work on the valuable material used on the floats carrying the religious statues in procession during Holy Week.

In the next module the pupils take a class in geometry, which is essential for learning the intricate patterns used in design of this kind. But here they design on computers. Not surprisingly, this theoretical class is somewhat intimidating for some of them, we are told by teacher Conchi García de la Chica, who uses an autoCAD software programme in her classroom. When finished, the pupils will have to begin work on finishing the map of the first cathedral in Malaga city. They will be working in the offices of architects and engineers, and will finish the second level of Vocational Training and take classes in the Official School of Applied Arts.

And finally, Salvador Gómez teaches the pupils how to work in metal. Juan Antonio Luque, only 16 years old, already knows where he is going. “My brother has a workshop and I want to learn metalworking so I can work with him,” he says, while watching closely what the teacher is doing at the bench. Following these classes, they will begin restoration work on the cathedral itself, mending and restoring metalwork inside and out.

Their last and best hope, and when they finish here, they will have finished school, just like thousands of other school-goers all over the province of Malaga. But they have the edge on many of them. They have a trade they can be proud of, and when asked what they do for a living, they will no longer have to look the other way.