Letter from the President
Our Founder is no longer with us. But his legacy and his wishes are present in the daily work of the Foundation, and they will continue to be, in this beginning that has no end. All of us working together, day by day, have built a unique organisation which looks on the world as a global reality while seeking to serve our society in the best possible way. We have endeavoured to follow the right path, making improvements and adding to it along the way, transforming the wishes of our Founder, which sprang above all from his generosity and his profound love of Spain, into concrete realities.
It is now eight years since the Foundation’s first public event took place in Spain on 18 May 2001. The choice of President W. J. Clinton as speaker was not just for show. It had to do with the Foundation’s prime objective: to contribute to improving the knowledge of Spain’s existing and future leaders. And it formed part of one of the activities programmed for this purpose: to organise top level lectures and conferences with the participation of individuals who have played a prominent role in the world.
The increase in the number of people attending our master lectures encouraged us to set about building a new auditorium to seat three hundred people which was inaugurated by the Mayor of Madrid on 3 June 2008. On one of the walls can be read the words spoken by the Founder when he was presented with his honorary doctor’s degree by the University of Castile-La Mancha: “We all have a great task before us: that of helping to ensure that the knowledge inherited from others, together with our own particular added value, continues to be transmitted to the next generations in freedom. All by means of serving others and through our commitment, our efforts and our sacrifice. And if we apply our knowledge in this way to improving the wellbeing of more people, we will have done our duty and we will have made a small contribution to helping the Earth’s inhabitants live together in peace.”
The activities of the Foundation have increased in number and are achieving ever higher standards. In addition, the development of the Foundation itself has made it advisable to adapt projects to new criteria in the pursuit of maximum efficiency in the allocation of resources. An example of this adaptation has been a more balanced distribution between the number of scholarships and the allocation of resources for attracting to Spain Spanish academics of high standing who are at world class foreign universities and research centres. A second example was the organisation of an extensive series of lectures with world-renowned experts in order to offer top quality information about the current debate on climate change.
Likewise, in response to a specific wish expressed by the Founder not long before he died and on the basis of an extraordinary contribution, the Foundation has set up a number of projects aimed at improving the living conditions of people with spinal injury, the most visible expression of which is the Rafael del Pino Sports Centre being built adjacent to the National Paraplegics Hospital at Toledo. Another of these projects - Toyra (occupational therapy and increased reality) - involves designing a therapeutic platform that facilitates the management of many patients by a small number of physiotherapists and at the same time makes it possible to achieve proper automated management of the progress of each patient by creating a virtual rehabilitation system. This project, which has been set up in partnership with the National Paraplegics Hospital and the Indra information technology company, will allow patients to perform the same movements as in traditional therapy.
In 2008, the Foundation won one of the three prizes awarded each year by ASPAYM, the Association for persons with spinal cord injury and the severely physically disabled; these awards seek to distinguish individuals and institutions from all over Spain who stand out for having helped to make life more normal for persons with spinal cord injury.
This Report gives an account of each of the activities undertaken by the Foundation in 2008. Analysis of it reveals the criteria followed and the progress that has been made over the past years. This process has involved many people: the Board of Trustees, the Advisory Board, the individuals who work for the Foundation with enthusiasm and generosity and all those who encourage and accompany us. The Foundation is the work of all of them.
The Spanish Association of Foundations generously chose to recognise this joint endeavour that is bearing its fruits by awarding the Rafael del Pino Foundation its Medal of Honour in 2008, which was presented to us by HRH Don Carlos de Borbón, Infante de España.
María del Pino y Calvo-Sotelo
President