La Caixa

On 2-4 February, ”la Caixa” Foundation will host a symposium at CaixaForum, the aim of which is to prompt an exchange of experiences among non-profit organisations working, or intending to work, on the process of employment integration of particularly vulnerable people. This concept refers not only to the disabled but also to those who, through a variety of circumstances, are at risk of social exclusion or have reached this situation. The event aims to provide a venue for reflection on the characteristics of vulnerable people and groups and on the conditions and methodology of the process of their employment integration.

The symposium will get underway with a reflection on the meaning of work in post-modern societies; the factors that make some people more vulnerable than others from a social and personal point of view; the social balance; and the personal, family, socio-economic and institutional factors that must ensure the success of employment integration for the disabled. The methodology and the role of social services in the 21st century are further aspects to be addressed by the symposium.
Featured speakers will include, among others, Carlos Obeso, director of the ESADE Labour Studies Institute; Manuel Muñoz, professor in the Department of Personality at the Complutense University of Madrid; Jaume Botey, professor of History at the University of Barcelona; Iñaki Gabilondo, journalist; Christian Tytgat, spokesperson for the Permanent Assembly of Nord-Pas-de-Calais; Ignaci Motte, chairman of the social enterprise “L’Artésienne” of Liévin; Demetrio Casado, technical director of the Royal Trust for Attention to the Psychologically Disabled; Enrique del Río, director of ProEmpleo and professor of Methodology of Employment Integration at Ramon Llull University; and Amalia Gómez, former secretary general of Social Affairs for the Spanish Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs.
The symposium will also include the presentation of a number of papers that will pool the experiences of different organisations specialising in the employment integration of the particularly vulnerable. We find examples of these groups in the collectives of people who are at risk of social exclusion or have reached this situation (Fundació Deixalles of Palma, Majorca, Consorcio il Mosaico of Udine, Asociación Alucinos of Madrid, Fundación ADUNARE of Zaragoza and Fundació Trinijove of Barcelona), and the disabled (Fundació ASPROS of Lleida).
Finally, Núria Gispert, chairperson of the charity organisation Cáritas Española, will deliver the symposium’s closing speech on the solidarity required for surmounting the different situations of poverty and social exclusion.

”la Caixa” Foundation and the vulnerable
The Symposium on the Employment Integration of the Particularly Vulnerable has been organised thanks to the social programmes that ”la Caixa” Foundation devotes to this group. ”la Caixa” Foundation has set up four competitions for grants to non-profit organisations for developing projects with people in situations of social exclusion, immigrants, or those with some type of disability, whether physical, psychological, sensory or mental. Since it was established in 1999, ”la Caixa” Foundation has collaborated with 1,848 non-profit organisations that work with these groups throughout Spain.
Similarly, the Social Studies Collection of ”la Caixa” Foundation seeks to foster reflection and social awareness of the socially vulnerable through several of its volumes: La inmigración extranjera en España (Foreign Immigration in Spain); Los valores de la sociedad española y su relación con las drogas (The Values of Spanish Society and Its Relation to Drugs); España ante la inmigración (Spain and Immigration); La violencia doméstica (Domestic Violence); Inmigración, escuela y mercado de trabajo (Immigration, Schooling and the Job Market) and La inserción laboral de las personas con discapacidades (The Employment Integration of the Disabled).

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