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When you’re named after the hero of the Trojan War, the strongest of all the Greek warriors — a demigod who was portrayed by Brad Pitt — greatness is expected of you. Demanded, even.
“Ever since I was a child, my father told me, ‘We have a special name. So make sure you do big things; good things,’” Aquilino Carrasco Alfaro said.
The Burden of Glorious Purpose
Aquilino — Aki for short, named, like his father, after Achilles — has felt the weight of that legacy since his birth in 2001, in the Spanish city of Albacete. But in October of 2024, when historic flooding hit Valencia, just two hours from his hometown, the rains, government mismanagement, and organizational skills he learned with Students For Liberty provided him the chance to live up to his name; the chance to be a hero.
His intellectual and emotional development, though, had begun long before. While SFL often empowers students with confidence and public speaking skills, it did the opposite for Aki, a natural extrovert.
“When I got involved with SFL, it forced me to speak to people from other countries, mostly in English, and really get out of my comfort zone. It humbled me, in a way. I still probably talk too much,” he laughed, “but now, there’s a lot more thought and information behind my voice. And I listen a lot more, too.”
“15 minutes later, everything was flooded.”
The weekend before the flood, Spain had been warned: They were about to get wet. But the last major flood had been in 1957, outside of most living memory; they had no idea how bad it would be.
“It was just a regular, early evening,” he said, “6:00 or 7:00 p.m. And then 15 minutes later, everything was flooded.”
At first, Aki wasn’t sure what to do.
“I spent a while watching social media videos, seeing the water levels rise … it was total chaos. Then I thought to myself: People are going to expect the government to help. But the local government started blaming the national government … the national government was blaming the local government, and in the end, no one did anything,” he said.
The political debate focused on Francisco Franco’s controversial decision, after that 1957 flood, to divert the Turia River away from the city center. That move likely saved downtown Valencia in 2024, but the dictator’s legacy lingers; the right-leaning Vox party in Spain has accused the left-leaning national government of abandoning further hydraulic projects and demolishing existing dams for political reasons — i.e., to spite Franco’s memory.
“People were quickly running out of food and water,” Aquilino said, adding a comparison between the floods in Valencia and those in North Carolina following Hurricane Helene a month earlier. “Every minute we waited for the government was a minute that someone could be suffering.”
“It was all leading to this.”
Aquilino was uniquely positioned to act. As National Coordinator for Spain, he had organized Students For Liberty events throughout the country, including leadership workshops and retreats for top regional contributors — events that required detailed planning, financial calculations, and complicated risk-reward assessments.
“For the Spanish retreat, there were 15 people attending, and everybody came from different areas with different schedules, so I had to coordinate transportation, having people meet each other at certain points, accommodating different needs,” he said. “So when the floods started, I was getting requests from people asking how they could help. It felt like it was all leading to this.”
Soon, Aquilino found himself coordinating more than 40 volunteers in the Valencia region, while donations of shovels, boots, helmets, gloves, and money came pouring in as quickly as the waters.
He remembered frequent, quick phone conversations: “It was like, ‘You’re a group of 10? Speak with this guy, he needs help with that.’ And then, to someone else I would say, ‘Want to bring something? They need THIS type of food or THAT type of equipment.’”
Meanwhile, Aki was working his full-time job as technical support for drone engineers and customers. He’s also starting to plan for an online Master’s program. But with his company’s blessing, work took a backseat.
“We use the term ‘coordinator’ within SFL,” he said. “And it gave me some practice at staying calm in nervous moments. But this was another level; the stakes were, obviously, so high. I had this realization, where I really understood the definition of the word coordination — how difficult it is to get the right people and the right supplies to the right place at the right time.”
Without the firm grounding in classical liberal ideas SFL provided, that epiphany might never have occurred — and the Spanish volunteers might not have been as helpful.
“We know that government is not efficient; that we cannot rely on it,” Aquilino said. “But what I learned with SFL is the flipside: That the people who live in Valencia have the local knowledge and that we CAN rely on them. So throughout this situation, I kept reminding myself, and others, to be aware of our limitations. We wanted desperately to help, but we had to listen to what people on the ground really needed.”
It’s impossible to quantify the impact Aquilino and the other Spanish SFLers had; how can you calculate the value of a hot meal at a trying time? But they raised almost $5,000 dollars in cash, plus several thousand more dollars’ worth of food and material. In ways big and small, they touched the lives of thousands of families. When it comes to positive impact on the world, that might be more than the real Achilles ever did.
And, out of the mud and dirt the horrific floods left behind, Aquilino hopes a lesson will emerge — a lesson, and an inspiration.
“I hope people’s lives can be rebuilt and the suffering stops,” he said. “But then I hope this opens people’s eyes. People think libertarians are selfish, that we don’t want to pay taxes so we can keep money for ourselves … but here, we saw the reality: Things like local knowledge, spontaneous order, and trust in humanity. We put our ideals into action.”
Are you like Aquilino and interested in getting involved in pro-liberty activism? By applying to join Students For Liberty’s Local Coordinator Program, you can be supported in promoting the ideas of liberty while also developing your skills and meeting many like-minded students from across the world. Click on the button below to find out more and get involved!
