Article 1has been acknowledged with the 2018 Princess of Girona Foundation (FPdGi) International Organisation Award. The name of the winning organisation was announced today at an act held at El Hueco in Soria, attended by over 200 people, well-known figures, companies and young people from the region. In its report, the jury, which met this morning in Soria, praised the winning organisation for its struggle in enhancing the employability of young people regardless of their social, economic or cultural background; for its impact on a high number of young people at risk of exclusion; for being a benchmarkfor growth after the merger of two different organisations; for its work in integrating education and employment, and for having achieved the active involvement of different agents from society [companies, professionals, volunteers, public and private institutions and centres of education], through very diverse funding strategies.
The jury of experts was made up of the Director of the NGO Cives Mundi,Joaquín Alcalde; the former president of UNICEF Spain and member of the FPdGi Advisory Council,Consuelo Crespo;the Deputy General Director of “La Caixa” Banking Foundation and member of the FPdGi Advisory Council,Elisa Durán;the Managing Director of Valnalón,Marta Pérez,and the Director General of Lealtad Instituciones,Patricia de Roda.
Article 1is a Paris-based social organisation that works to end inequality of opportunity among young people from different social and economic backgrounds. It has a great impact on the most underprivileged classes, with some 12,000 beneficiaries, and has enjoyed great success. The result of the merger of two organisations, Frateli and Passeport Avenir, its operating principles are based on the defence of Article 1 of the French Constitution (justice, equality, fraternity and liberty), from which it gets its name.
The announcement of the winner of the 2018 FPdGi International Organisation Award was made by the journalist and comic Juan Carlos Ortega at an act attended by the Mayor of Soria,Carlos Martínez Mínguez, the President of the FPdGi,Francisco Belil, the President of the NGO Cives Mundi (the organisation that manages El Hueco),Antonio López Calvín, as well as the President of Soria Provincial Council, Luis Rey de las Heras, the Sub-delegate of the Spanish Government in Soria, Yolanda de Gregorio, and the Delegate of the Junta de Castilla y León, Manuel López Represa. Mercedes Valcárcel,Director General of Tomillo Foundation, which won the 2016 FPdGi Organisation Award, also took part.
Francisco Belil, President of the FPdGi, celebrated the return to Soria, after the success of last year, and expressed his surprise “at the great interest shown once again by young people in what we do, thanks to the work of El Hueco”. Antonio López Calvín, President of Cives Mundi, in his speech emphasised the importance of staging events like this at El Hueco: “We work together with the FPdGi to reverse the depopulation that is devastating us, through the promotion of the entrepreneurial talent that young people need so much”. For a province that has lost over 1,000 citizens (most of whom are young people) in the last year, it is essential that we should find channels to ensure that talent, ideas and people do not leave. López Calvín concluded that “it is necessary to create resources and to generate opportunities, to encourage a new open and multidisciplinary rural economy, which shuns stereotypes and has the necessary institutional support and infrastructures”. To close the event, the Mayor of Soria,Carlos Martínez Mínguez, emphasised that “Soria is a city that wishes to share and disseminate what it has to offer through talent and entrepreneurship, which is our main concern, as it is what fills us with optimism and hope”.
The challenge in Soria: encouraging rural development
Prior to the public announcement of the winner of the 2018 FPdGi International Organisation Award, El Hueco also hosted an entrepreneurial challenge at which over 170 peopleworked in teams for 180 intense minutes to seek “ideas for developing the depopulated rural world through social organisations”.
This activity, which took place from 9 o’clock in the morning to 12 noon, is part of the special programme designed by the FPdGi to mark the announcement of the winner of the 2018 FPdGi International Organisation Award. The entrepreneur Xavier Verdaguerfrom Imagine Creativity Center, a company specialised in encouraging innovation projects for other companies, led this creative innovation workshop using the Lombard method, which he himself designed. The method consists in successfully completing different phases in order to convert a problem into an opportunity, and at the same time to propose a project for or solution to the problem in question. The methodology involves the phases of formulating the problem, brainstorming ideas, creating a prototype and learning how to convey the project. Participants were organised into teams and worked against the clock to design a proposal capable of resolving the challenge. The winning team at this workshop was “Soria 2049”, which proposed a revitalisation project for rural zones based on a television series.
For the second year running, the Princess of Girona Foundation has chosen the city of Soria for one of the stop-off points of the tourfor announcing its 2018 awards, and has established intense collaboration with El Hueco, which promotes social entrepreneurship in different areas. Both the Princess of Girona Foundation and El Hueco, a venue promoted by the NGOCives Mundi, support young people who wish to use their ideas to help make a better world. After last year’s announcement of the Social Award, the Princess of Girona Foundation has returned to Soria this year to announce the International Organisation Award.
Information on the award-winning organisation
Paris-based Article 1 arose from the merger of two associations that work to encourage equality of opportunity, Frateli and Passeport Avenir. These were founded in 2004 and 2005 respectively in response to the same problem: the social inequality and discrimination that arises among young people with low incomes.
Guided by the common values of justice, equality, fraternity and liberty, established in Article 1 of the French Constitution, over time these two associations have developed programmes that seek to create bonds and organise meetings among young people and volunteers/mentors from the professional world who wish to share their knowledge and commitment with the former. Through its mentoring programmes and the organisation of workshops, nearly 12,000 students from humble backgrounds have received support from the organisation.Theultimate objective of Article 1is to create a society in which orientation, academic success and professional integration do not depend on social, economic and cultural background, but rather, in short, one in which success depends on social ties and on civic commitment.
The FPdGi Awards tour
The tour for announcing the 2018 Princess of Girona Foundation Awards began in Mérida on 7 February with the announcement of the singer Soleá Morenteand the violoncellistPablo Ferrández as winners of the Arts and Literature Award. The next stop was in Seville on 21 February, with the announcement of the Scientific Research Award, which recognised the work of the chemicalengineer María Escuderoand of thechemist Guillermo Mínguez.It thenmoved on to Tenerife, with the announcement of the Business Award for the engineer José Miguel Bermúdez. The work of Aránzazu Martínezwas acknowledged with the Social Award on 21 March in L’Hospitalet de Llobregat, and the tour came to an end today in Soria with the announcement of the International Organisation Award.
The Princess of Girona Foundation Awards, which come with endowments of 10,000 euros and a reproduction of a work by the sculptor Juan Muñoz, acknowledge the innovative and exemplary records of young people from 16 to 35 years old, as well as that of a European Union organisation that works to benefit young people. The awards will be presented at the end of June at a ceremony in Girona presided by Their Majesties the King and Queen.
