The winners of the International Novia Salcedo Award have been announced

The Jury of the Seventh International Novia Salcedo Award for excellence in the Professional Integration of Young People, chaired by the prestigious lawyer Antonio Garrigues Walker, and comprising another twelve renowned entrepreneurs and professionals, announced the winners in Bilbao last week.

In this 2016 edition, the winners are: Jordi Albareda (in the People category), Victoria Camps (Ad Honorem), Emtesport (Company), and Fundación Paraguaya (public administrations/institutions/NGOs).

The International Novia Salcedo Foundation Award is the only one of its kind in the State and intends to acknowledge the excellent work performed by individuals, companies and institutions in favour of the integration of young people in the labour market in optimal conditions, as well as those that generate innovative ideas or disseminate projects and plans promoting responsibility towards young people.

The ‘People’ category award went to Jordi Albareda for his cultural dimension in today’s society as a generator of civic virtues, ethical attitudes and solidarity placing the spotlight on the values of young people in these professional fields and through the use of new digital marketing tools.

The ‘Ad Honorem’ award acknowledges Victoria Camps for being one of the major Spanish philosophers who is concerned with “making liberal values and the concept of freedom compatible with cooperation, participation and ultimately with everything that creates social cohesion and community” and for which education is the key to reversing an individualistic culture into a more reasonable culture, where individuals are more capable of cooperating.

The ‘Companies’ award went to Emtesport; a company headed by female entrepreneurs, with a workforce consisting entirely of young people in an emerging sector, such as the world of sport, with great potential for economic development and for generating educational and healthy lifestyle values. The remarkable effort made in training and updating the professionals who belong to this company is also noteworthy.

Finally, and in the ‘Organizations/NGOS’ category, the award went to Fundación Paraguaya, an institution with a large network of international alliances and collaboration projects in Africa, for its educational model that addresses the struggle to eradicate poverty in a different way and that uses a methodology based on “learning by doing, selling and earning”. This innovative educational approach seeks to make a difference and ensure that young people in vulnerable situations can acquire the skills and knowledge needed to start their own businesses in rural areas, access decent jobs in the agricultural sector or continue their studies.

The awards ceremony will take place in June at the Teatro Arriaga in Bilbao at an official ceremony that is usually chaired by the King and Queen of Spain and the Prime Minister of the Basque Government, although this point still has to be confirmed.