The plenary meeting of the Princess of Girona Foundation’s Board of Trustees, held in ordinary session today at the Royal Palace in Madrid and presided over by Their Majesties the King and Queen of Spain, has approved the action plan and budget for 2018, which will continue to focus on the professional development and educational programmes promoted by the Foundation and which are now present in all the autonomous communities of Spain. The President, Francisco Belil, and the Foundation’s managers reported to the highest governing body on the activities carried out during the current year, an annual report that reveals figures with greater social impact in all areas of work. The Board reaffirmed its commitment to the city of Girona, where it is based, and its desire to continue extending the Foundation’s programmes around the region, with a budget for 2018 —approved in today’s session— of 2.8 million euros for promoting programmes that benefit young people. Approval was also given for three new companies to join the Board: Binter Canarias S.A., Mercedes-Benz España S.A. and Samsung Electronics Iberia S.A.
In 2017, 10,000 people from 17 autonomous communities benefitted from the programmes promoted by the Princess of Girona Foundation, and which form part of its three strategic lines: the FPdGi Awards, which recognise talented young people who may serve as contemporary role models for their peers; professional development programmes, led by ‘Talent rescuers’; and educational programmes, with ‘Educating entrepreneurial talent’ among the projects.
Professional development programmes
One of the main innovations in 2017 was the launch of ‘Talent rescuers’ (successor of ‘Mentoring talent’), a transformative project that promotes the employability of young people aged between 20 and 30 years old who have completed higher education and are unemployed, underemployed or ready to join the workplace for the first time. The programme offers participants a personalised route map, professional mentoring, training with collaborating companies and financial aid for mobility. More than 2,400 young people have signed up to this programme, which has 28 collaborating companies and 270 positive experiences of mentoring, and has set up 19 development centres in six autonomous communities and 26 online training courses. In 2017, the FPdGi also held its first ‘Junior Leadership Campus’, with the participation of 30 young entrepreneurs who are keen to build a more just world.
Educational programmes
Fostering an entrepreneurial culture among young people is key to helping them fulfil their aspirations as citizens and as professionals in an increasingly uncertain environment. For this reason, the FPdGi’s educational programmes focus on teacher training. Its ‘Educating entrepreneurial talent’ programme, launched in 2012, works with teachers as the main actors in education, offering them the tools to change the educational system: training, support and meeting points where they can learn, share and design the best possible future for their educational institutions. This programme has reached 13 of Spain’s autonomous communities in 2017, with the participation of 1120 teachers in the basic and advanced courses that were run. In addition, 300 professionals from the sector took part in regional meetings and a total of 80 entrepreneurial education projects have been developed, achieving a direct impact on 26,000 students.
One of the main innovations in 2017 was the first FPdGi Pedagogical Expedition. More than 30 teachers from nine autonomous communities visited different innovative education centres in Andalusia that foster the entrepreneurial talent of their students. Another new project this year was the first edition of the Entrepreneurial School Award, open to all education centres committed to developing young talent and educational innovation.
2017 FPdGi Awards
The call for entries to the 2018 Princess of Girona Foundation Awards closed at the end of October, and during the first quarter of the new year the winners of the five categories (Social, Scientific Research, Arts and Literature, Business, International Organisation) will be announced at various events. The official announcements will be made on a tour of different cities around Spain, after the success of this format in 2017 (an event that combines the jury meeting, the winner announcement and a challenge activity for young people). The FPdGi Awards ceremony in June, and the activities taking place around this event, have been firmly established in recent editions as a social and media showcase for the Foundation’s programmes.
In the next few days the FPdGi will publish the video round-up of 2017 and its action plan for 2018 on its website fpdgi.org.
