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Esther Koplowitz receives the Gold Medal of Merit in Work

05/11/2014

Esther Koplowitz receives the Gold Medal of Merit in Work

  • The Labour Minister, Fátima Báñez, has granted the award to the company and the Spanish philanthropist.
  • The Spanish entrepreneur and philanthropist accepted the award “on behalf of the employees at FCC and the parents of children with disabilities, because they are an example of unflagging work well done, faith, selflessness and love”.
Esther Koplowitz receives the Gold Medal of Merit in Work

Esther Koplowitz received the Gold Medal of Merit in Work today at a ceremony held at the National Library presided over by the Labour Minister, Fátima Báñez, who was accompanied by the Vice-President of the Government, Soraya Sáenz de Santamaría.

The award acknowledges merit for “exemplary conduct to the benefit of society in the course of performing the tasks involved in any type of work, profession or service”.

The Vice-Chairwoman of FCC and Chairwoman of the Foundation that bears her name accepted the award “on behalf of the employees at FCC and the parents of children with disabilities, because –she said-- they are an example of unflagging work well done, faith, selflessness and love”.

After several years leading a group that includes some of the most relevant companies in Spain,  Esther Koplowitz has acknowledged the need to give back to society part of what she had created. She has done so in particular through the Foundation that bears her name and their work in building and fitting out residences for the underprivileged or those at risk of exclusion, such as the elderly, which are subsequently donated to the public administration. 

Fundación Esther Koplowitz has one residence, Nuestra Casa, in Collado Villalba (Madrid); another, la Nostra Casa de Fort Pienc, in the city of Barcelona and a third residence in the city of Valencia, devoted to persons with physical and intellectual disabilities.

At present, Fundación Esther Koplowitz has significant projects underway, such as the residence and treatment centre for children with cerebral palsy, which will be donated to Fundación Nido upon completion.

These are just a few of the more than two hundred activities performed by the Foundation, an excellent example of which, in the field of research, is the Esther Koplowitz Biological Research Centre (Centro de Investigaciones Biológicas Esther Koplowitz, or CIBEK, in Spanish). In addition to this centre, which diagnoses and treats highly complex diseases at the Clinical Hospital of Barcelona, other initiatives include the CEPRI (a centre specialised in the treatment of autism) in Majadahonda, the Da Vinci robot donated to the Clinical Hospital of Madrid for High Precision Surgery, or over 1,200 scholarships for living expenses for university students lacking resources. Everything is exclusively funded with contributions by Esther Koplowitz, who, through her philanthropy and patronage, has given much more to society than she has received. 

 

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