abertis today held its fourth Corporate Volunteer Day, hosting various assistance and awareness-raising activities focused this year on the increase in poverty and social exclusion. This time around, under the slogan “Now more than ever, let’s do more to help”, it forms part of the Corporate Volunteer programme, Voluntaris, which the company has been carrying out since 2009.
The official ceremony held this morning at the abertis Group’s headquarters in Barcelona was attended by three leading organisations in integrated social care: The Food Bank Foundation, the Spanish Red Cross and Cáritas Diocesana. The President of the Food Bank Foundation in Barcelona, Antoni Sansalvadó, the President of the Catalan Red Cross, Josep Marquès, and the Head of Social Action at Cáritas Diocesana in Barcelona, Joana Martín, all of whom attended a round table moderated by the Manager of the abertis Foundation, Sergi Loughney, set out the harsh reality in which many people currently find themselves, in particular countless families who until very recently would never have thought that they might need help.
The President of abertis and the abertis Foundation, Salvador Alemany, stressed that “voluntary work at abertis forms part of the soul of the company” and reaffirmed the idea behind the Volunteer Day slogan because “in an environment of widespread crisis, the response provided by society and business is very important”.
The event was also attended by the Catalan Government’s Acting Minister for Social Welfare and Family, Josep Lluís Cleries.
Donations to charity projects
As part of Volunteer Day, the abertis Foundation announced that it is donating a total of €24,000 to four charity initiatives, which have been selected by a vote of the Group’s employees through the corporate Intranet.
The Foundation will thus allocate €6,000 to each of the chosen projects: a therapeutic project for children and young people who are victims of physical and sexual abuse promoted by the Concepción Juvanteny Foundation in Barcelona; improving the mobility of disabled and/or amputee Haitian children at the Kay St. Germain Rehabilitation Center, in Puerto Príncipe (Haiti), a project led by the Nuestros Pequeños Hermanos Foundation; assistance with research into the Sanfilippo syndrome and gene therapy as a cure, developed by Sanfilippo Barcelona; and the adaptation and fitting out of a property provided by the Barcelona City Council, for people with mental disability and their guardians, run by the Aspasim Foundation.
Visit by Jil van Eyle, creator of the Teaming concept
The creator of the Teaming concept (micro-donations made from company employee salaries), Jil van Eyle, also participated in the abertis Group’s 4th Volunteer Day, offering his thanks to all the abertis employees for the one euro that each of them monthly sets aside for a wide range of charity projects which are chosen internally, following a vote.
Activities in diverse countries
In view of the current increase in demand for food, the collection of food is being promoted in more than 20 of the Group’s centres in Spain from 10 to 20 December. At the Barcelona headquarters, new or nearly-new toys are also being collected, as well as gifts for teenagers, which will be given to children in the foster homes of the Concepció Juvanteny Foundation.
On the international front, the abertis headquarters in Argentina, Chile, France, Puerto Rico and the United Kingdom have also joined the celebration of this day by promoting the collection of food.
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