26% of the population in Spain is at risk of poverty or social exclusion. That is, 12.3 million people. Homelessness is also growing. The numbers are overwhelming. Not seeing work, not seeing food, not seeing a future. When hope is lost, there is the Fundación de l'Esperança. For ten years, the entity that has been and is the flagship of the La Caixa Foundation has been deploying a direct action task, as huge as it is discreet.
Give a man a fish and he will eat today. Give him a rod and teach him to fish and he will eat for the rest of his life…
This is the philosophy that should inspire all social action. It is ours as a foundation. We must ensure that people with problems take the reins of their lives. Our model is not an assistance model, it wants to transform.
To transform?
If you give a school or food check to a child it will not cause any change in him. It's just an add-on at a particular time. But if what you want is for the child to have social and academic development despite the fact that his family and economic circumstances do not favor it, then there will be a change.
There are those who continue to confuse charity or beneficence with social assistance.
If the beneficence is not accompanied by a transformative action, it means an inefficient use of resources.
What role has the Fundación de l'Esperança played since it was born, ten years ago?
It has acted as a test bed for the La Caixa Foundation. Its main intervention programs have been developed in L'Esperança. It's about doing a comprehensive action on people who need it, from babies to adults. The La Caixa Foundation is not only a funder, but we intervene directly through programs in all the provinces of Spain.
Is the La Caixa Foundation the social work of a bank?
No. Obviously we have common origins, with which we identify. The current structure of the Foundation, devised by its president Isidre Fainé, has made it the head of the group. It is the largest foundation in Spain and one of the first in Europe. It allows us to maintain the spirit of its founder, Francesc Moragas, and guarantee the continuity of social action. The demonstration is that 60% of the budget, 538 million in 2023, is allocated to social programs.
What is the relationship between L'Esperança and the Administration?
Cases are referred to us from social services, but there is no economic relationship.
And with social entities?
We work hand in hand, in a network. Fundació La Caixa's program of social calls allows us to collaborate with a thousand entities from all over Spain, which are on the ground. They are a fundamental piece so that aid reaches those who really need it.
The entities of the third sector are calling for more resources and against the slowness in granting the budget items allocated to them by the administrations.
And they are right. Administrations take a long time to decide on the aid that entities need to act. There is excessive bureaucratization and an excess of zeal when awarding the money. It also happens in the management of European social funds. The La Caixa Foundation model goes in the opposite direction.
explain yourself
Social action is only efficient if there is a medium or long-term vision. It is important to measure the social impact of each intervention. First we identify the need, then we apply scientific method and qualified equipment to it and finally we evaluate the result of each program. Thanks to CaixaProinfancia, for example, we serve more than 63,000 children a year. With 1,000 euros per year per child, we break the cycle of poverty from parents to children.
Are we in a social emergency?
We have been in a social emergency for so long that it has stopped being a sudden event to become chronic. During the pandemic we all overturned it, in some ways it improved, but the emergency remains at very high levels. The situation is worrying. There are people who do not manage to get out of the hole: their circumstances are getting worse, with a greater risk of being perpetuated over time.
More than 400,000 children under the age of 16 are at risk of poverty and social exclusion in Catalonia.
The poverty that affects families with children is one of the most urgent areas in which intervention is needed. Spain is one of the countries where this poverty lasts longer and records worse rates. We are also particularly concerned about the abyss into which many people fall when they lack a job or when they have one that does not allow them to survive. It happens that these situations remain entangled: those affected close in on themselves without the possibility of a social interrelationship, condemned to exclusion. The Incorpora program, for which we count on the collaboration of more than 10,000 companies, acts on this problem.
In recent times, due to the population pyramid, higher life expectancy and changes in society, the elderly have appeared in social exclusion.
It's like this. Before, pensions guaranteed being able to make it to the end of the month. Not now. In many cases there is no family network either. The elderly are not a uniform group, there are many stages with different needs. Fostering their autonomy and avoiding their exclusion from technology are key issues. Another of our programs is aimed at this goal.
During the pandemic, a part of society forgot to look after the dignity of the elderly and their rights.
This cannot be repeated. The end of life must also be dignified. It is another challenge for social intervention. At the Foundation we work with public and private hospitals, residences and home care teams to give life to days, and not just days to life.
