Four young people awarded by the Princess of Girona Foundation and leaders in the social sector have spoken to H.M. the Queen about the role of the third sector in the pandemic.
The meeting was attended by Guillermo Martínez Gauna-Vivas (director of Ayúdame3D and Social Award in 2020), Felipe Campos (director of the Ítaca Educational Association and Social Award 2013), Arancha Martínez (founder of the start-up It Will be and Social Award 2018) and Begoña Arana Álvarez (founder of Nuevo Hogar Betania and Social Award 2019).
The Queen asked the award winners about their personal experience during the pandemic to find out what impact it had and what their vision of the third sector is in the immediate future. Guillermo Martínez Gauna-Vivas, director of Ayúdame3D, a social organisation that makes 3D printed aid for vulnerable groups around the world, spoke about his experience during the worst months of COVID-19. Guillermo told Doña Letizia how he realised what he could do to help from his social organisation: "it was when I realised what we were called: "Ayúdame3D, our association was not called arms". She immediately put her work and her network of volunteers and 3D experts at the service of society, helping more than 20,000 people with the creation of 3D printed protective screens against the coronavirus.
"Society has realised that we are not the ones patching up problems but that we are really transforming a society from scratch and we are succeeding in reducing inequality," Gauna-Vivas added.
Social entrepreneurship and educational transformation were the themes chosen for the third stop of the FPDGI Tour, which named Ousman Umar, founder of the NGO NASCO Feeding Minds, an organisation that creates technological classrooms in rural areas of Africa to reduce inequality of opportunities, as the winner of the Social 2021 award. Congratulations!