The Most International CECA Awards Bet on ‘Empowering’ to Transform Society

The awards recognize each year the best social projects and financial education, this time, with a new international category and a protagonist: the transformative power of tools at the service of society.

There is a well-known Chinese proverb that says, “give a fish to a person, and they will eat today; give them a rod, teach them to fish, and they will eat for the rest of their lives.” The message is clear: direct help generates dependency and is short-term, while providing tools is useful to empower those in need, enabling them to overcome their complex situation permanently. This was precisely the message conveyed by the award winners, finalists, and participants in the latest edition of the CECA Awards for Social Work and Financial Education, whose award ceremony took place this Tuesday at the organization’s headquarters in Madrid and was organized, as in previous years, in collaboration between CECA and El Confidencial.

The ceremony was hosted by Juan Carlos López, Head of Sustainability and Stakeholder Relations at CECA, and Elena Hita, a collaborator at this media outlet, and included the participation of Carlos Sánchez, Deputy Director of El Confidencial, and Antonio Romero, Corporate Director of Associative Services and Resources at CECA. In addition to the award winners and their representatives, the gala was attended by the members of the jury, which in this edition was made up of experts from the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Digital Transformation, the Bank of Spain, the National Securities Market Commission, the Lealtad Foundation, Spainsif, Complutense University of Madrid, Carlos III Health Institute, Funcas, and El Confidencial, who had to evaluate a total of 71 candidates.

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As every year, the awards were divided into two main categories: Social Work and Financial Education, although the main novelty of this edition was the inclusion of an honorary award aimed at recognizing the Social Initiative and International Career. This new award went to Fundación Grupo Social, a Colombian entity with 112 years of history. Its president, Juan Carlos Gómez Villegas, explained to the audience following the event via streaming that this organization “works with a promotional criterion, not assistive, because we want to empower people to become managers of their own development.”

Additionally, Gómez Villegas highlighted that Fundación Grupo Social has a special characteristic: it owns several companies and not the other way around, as is usually the case. This implies that these companies “have the purpose of contributing to overcoming the structural causes of poverty.” At the same time, he clarified that one of these firms is Banco Caja Social, a relevant entity in Colombia aimed at the base of the pyramid, meaning it seeks to help people with lower incomes, as well as smaller companies.

The social commitment of the entities

In the Social Work category, the special jury award went to the campaign Family Needs Family, by Fundación la Caixa, aimed at people arriving in our country in situations of forced displacement, such as Ukrainian families. “This project was directly commissioned by the central Government and would not have been realized without the collaboration and help of the 18 entities that worked with us in the four chosen cities,” pointed out Marc Simón, Deputy General Director of the entity. “Thanks to them, we managed to offer more than 4,500 families, of which we validated nearly 600, and ultimately, 300 were able to welcome Ukrainian family units,” he clarified.

The other categories of Social Work recognized Unforgettable, by Fundación Caja Navarra (Social Action); Caixaforum+, by Fundación la Caixa (Culture and Heritage); Campus Fundación Unicaja (Sports and Leisure); Skylab, by Fundación Ávila (Local Development and Job Creation); Scellentia, by Fundación Caja Extremadura (Education and Research), and Plankton, by Afundación, Obra Social Abanca (Environment). The finalists in these areas were, respectively, Young Painting Awards, by Fundación Ibercaja; program Deportivity, by Fundación Vital Fundazioa; Gastroemployment, by Fundación La Caja de Canarias; Guide for the Promotion of Mental Health and Prevention of Adolescent Suicide, by Fundación Vital Fundazioa, and Cultivating Friendship, by Fundación Montemadrid.

A tool for a lifetime

The special jury award in the Financial Education section went to Fundación Ibercaja for its project Learning to Undertake. The award was collected by Mayte Santos, head of Business Development and Education at the organization, who emphasized the program’s goal: “We want to contribute to the progress of society and achieve social equality through financial education, as it enables the population to make better decisions.” Furthermore, she specified that, “despite having organized 13 editions of the program, the last one was a complete success because 2,500 students from 49 schools participated.”

Her colleague Carmen Campos, coordinator of Education Projects at Fundación Ibercaja, emphasized how “what students learn in the program will help them for the rest of their lives, when they have to make important decisions like buying a house, signing a mortgage, investing saved money, or retiring.”

The award winners in the other sections of the category were the projects ImaginAcademy, by CaixaBank (children and youth aged 0 to 25 years); Much to Do, by CaixaBank (adults aged 26 to 65 years); Workshops on Financial and Digital Education for Seniors, by Unicaja Banco and Fundación Bancaria Unicaja (people over 65 years), and the Rural Entrepreneurship Awards, by Fundación Ibercaja (Entrepreneurs). The respective finalists in the same categories were Escape Room, the Savings, by Fundación Cajasol; Financial Mondays, by Fundación Cajasol; Training and Financial Digitalization Program in Rural Areas, by Afundación Obra Social Abanca, and SamaraCamp, by Fundación Caja Extremadura.

The new way to empower society

The jury members agreed in praising the quality of the submitted projects. Thus, Carlos Sánchez, Deputy Director of El Confidencial, highlighted that “a country is worth what its institutions and its civil society are worth,” but emphasized that “the latter must be organized through foundations for the work to be professional and efficient, and to reach all citizens.” On her part, Marta Alonso, Head of Technical Secretariat of Spainsif, confirmed the high level of the participants: “We found it very difficult to choose the winners, there was much debate. But the main thing is to highlight the work that foundations have done with all groups, from children to the elderly, emphasizing financial education, as we believe it is very important in the times we live in.”

The closing of the event was led by Antonio Romero, Corporate Director of Associative Services and Resources at CECA, who assured that “this award ceremony represents, nothing less, the recognition of our particular way of understanding banking business. That is, our entities provide financial services, it is clear, but they have always understood that these same services must be linked to a commitment to the development and well-being of the communities where we are rooted.”

The CECA representative also highlighted that “social work is in very good health at the moment. Proof of this is that last year our entities invested more than 800 million euros in assistance. This investment is very focused on people in vulnerable situations or with special needs who have largely been beneficiaries of this social work.” At the same time, “the organizations have shown their commitment to financial education, as a new way to empower today’s society in light of the complexities of the financial sector,” he concluded.