”la Caixa” Foundation initiatives to address coronavirus
The ”la Caixa” Foundation, like many foundations across Europe, has carried out a number of initiatives to address the wide ranging impact of coronavirus.
A number of these initiatives can be found below:
- Grants to the value of 3 million euros for food and basic necessities provided to vulnerable families from the CaixaProinfancia programme, to which the Foundation annually allocates 60 million euros. Some 13,340 families have benefitted from this action.
- Grants to the value of 4.3 million euros to promote projects aimed at social and occupational integration and housing for social inclusion for people particularly affected by COVID-19 (through the Calls for Applications for Social Initiative Projects).
- Psychosocial care for patients affected by coronavirus and their families. Mobilisation of the 230 professionals adhered to the programme of Comprehensive Care for People with Advanced Diseases. This initiative has provided care for 5,592 patients.
- Psychological care service for healthcare workers. Creation of a platform offering free care by telephone, videoconference and online monitoring to alleviate the situations of emotional stress suffered by healthcare workers. The Spanish Ministry of Health and the Galatea Foundation took part in the development of this project.
- Partnership in Catalonia with the Red Cross to help the elderly. Distribution of 2,500 packages of food and hygiene products, and personalised assistance to the elderly to alleviate situations of loneliness.
- Emergency solidarity campaign in support of Food Banks, on which some 300,000 families depend. The campaign has raised more than 3.2 million euros, to which the Foundation has added a further 1 million euros.
- Social Research aimed at supporting the development of 15 research projects which will help understand emerging challenges, among them some that have arisen following the pandemic. Funding offered in the call amounts to 1.5 million euros. In addition, the Foundation has opened two express calls to which 180,000 euros has been allocated for projects based on surveys or quantitative data.
- Job creation. The Foundation’s social and occupational integration programme Incorpora has been instrumental in providing 3,613 jobs for people in a situation of social exclusion, half of which are essential infrastructure positions.
- Call for applications for funding for research projects linked to coronavirus. An overall allocation of 2 million euros has been provided through the CaixaImpulse initiative to support six cutting-edge research projects in Spain and Portugal.
- Support for research into and clinical trials against COVID-19. Through the IrsiCaixa project (Dr Bonaventura Clotet), or the Barcelona Global Health Institute (Dr Antonio Plasencia), the Foundation dedicates an annual sum of 60 million euros to medical research.