If we made a cloud of words from 2020, surely the word recognition would appear among them. At the beginning of the state of alarm and confinement, recognition took shape and body in the evening applause that from the windows and balconies we made to the health personnel, a recognition still in force, although less formally applauded.
In 2020 we have learned, in case we did not yet know, to recognize the effort, achievement or contribution of the people who have been at the forefront of the fight against this pandemic. And if we already knew, we perfected it. Recognition is an ingredient that, one way or another, everyone needs, not to feed vanity (which in some cases also) but to grow on a personal and professional level.
Health personnel are not the only ones who have deserved, and still deserve our recognition, they also deserve the social world, that of professionals engaged in social action in all its breadth, whether in basic and specialized social and educational services, accompanying people who, apart from the health consequences of the pandemic, they have also suffered and suffer economic and social consequences.
Social action also deserves recognition and from Plataforma Educativa we will do ours in the 9th edition of the Maria Figueras and Mercè Bañeras Social Action Awards, which we will celebrate, as is traditional, Saint George’s Day. Convened since 2013, the Social Action Awards maintain the will to recognize the work of people, entities, services and projects that from social action contribute to the improvement of people’s quality of life. The awards have three categories: social innovation and social entrepreneurship for projects, and citizen co-responsibility, a recognition of a personal nature in which the dedication and contribution of the person who receives it to social action throughout his career is highlighted.
Experts say that recognitions must be honest, authentic and genuine, that they must be specific, and therefore it is necessary to identify the value of the contribution or benefit that effort or achievement has represented, and that it is important to make them public, externalize, formalize them.
This year, Maria Figueras and Mercè Bañeras Social Action Awards for Educational Platform, in addition to making the traditional recognitions for entrepreneurship, social innovation, and citizen co-responsibility, we will find a way to make the recognition that, we think, also deserves social action.
Roger Casero Gumbau
He is patron of The Educational Platform (Resilis Foundation) and began working as an educator in a children’s centre (CRAE) in 1995; he has also been director of a nursing home for people with intellectual disabilities, and since 2007 coordinates a job placement programme in the counties of Girona.