2023-04-28 20:37:18
The founder of La Fageda, Cristóbal Colón; the director and artist of the company GoodGutMariona Serra, and the entity Brave and Accompanied they are the proper names of the first Generalitat Girona Awards. The awards are born with the aim of making visible the “excellence and drive” of projects and references in the territory. They bear the names of the president Joseph Irlathe writer Aurora Bertrana and the teacher and republican trade unionist Isabel Vila. In this first edition, they received 80 nominations. The Government delegate, Laia Cañigueral, has highlighted that with the Generalitat Girona Awards “we want to create benchmarks, so that young and not-so-young people have examples that motivate them to get involved, to innovate and improve their environment”.
On April 28, 1931, President Macià appointed Josep Irla first commissioner delegate of the Generalitat in Girona, once the Second Republic had been proclaimed. That police station was the antecedent of the current Government Delegation, which has precisely chosen this Friday, 92 years later, to award the first Generalitat Girona Awards. Awards that are created with the aim of highlighting the values of the territory and recognizing both the projects and the people who are their reference.
The Josep Irla Award, which recognizes the career of relevant people in the demarcation, has been awarded to founder of La Fageda, Christopher Columbus. It was given to him by the Climate Action councillor, Teresa Jordà, in recognition of the work he has been doing at the head of the organization for more than 40 years.
Colón founded Fageda in 1982, with about fifteen people, most of them from the psychiatric hospital in Salt. Since then, it has grown into one reference social projectwith more than 500 people served, which improves the quality of life and promotes the social integration of people in vulnerable situations.
The Aurora Bertrana Award, named after the writer from Girona, is given to social projects that promote equity and equality. The Minister of Justice, Gemma Ubasart, has given it to the association Brave and Accompanied, which fights forced marriages in demarcation. Since its birth, they have accompanied more than 200 women in situations of forced marriages and have held dozens of informative and training sessions to make this reality visible in the Girona counties.
The third of the awards, the Isabel Vila Award, distinguishes business initiatives. The Minister for Research and Universities, Joaquim Nadal, has given it to the founder and director of GoodGut, Mariona Serra. This start-up, born in 2014 as a spin-off of the University of Girona (UdG) and the Biomedical Research Institute of Girona (Idibgi), focuses on developing products to diagnose and treat digestive diseases based on the study of the intestinal microbiota. Currently, part of the Hipra group, it has already developed three diagnostic products that are in use and three more, in the development phase.
“We want to create benchmarks”
During the closing of the event, the Government representative remarked on the importance of these awards, because they claim the positive. “Unfortunately, too often the news that has the most impact is the negative; the negative inputs resonate more than the positive, and surely in recent years this fact has worsened,” said Laia Cañigueral.
The delegate emphasized that, in the Girona regions, “we are lucky to have social, economic, environmental and cultural projects driven by people who, far from working only for their own benefit, improve the well-being of everyone”.
And in this sense, Cañigueral has also underlined the desire of the Generalitat Girona Awards to “create benchmarks”. “We want these awards serve as an example; that young people, and not so young people, have examples that inspire them to undertake, to get involved in volunteering projects, to innovate… In short, to improve our environment”, said the delegate. “Our society is nothing more than a group of people and the attitude and values of each one of us has a direct impact on this human group of which we are a part”, he concluded.
The Generalitat Girona Awards are a reproduction of the ‘Torso de Venus’, the sculpture by Arístides Maillol that presides over one of the courtyards of the Government Delegation. In this first edition, the jury for the awards was formed by Maria Bouabdellah; Joaquim Salvi; Mariàngela Vilallonga; Jan Millastre; Clàudia Cedó; Jaume Fabrega; Luisa Ferrer; Joan Tibau; Sandra Masoliver and Albert Bou.
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