Maria Tió has been an active collaborator of Social Promotion Foundation since 2016.
A resident of San Pol de Mar, Barcelona, Maria is fully committed to disseminating and supporting the work we do through our cooperation and humanitarian aid projects in her place of residence. Her firm commitment and total identification with the Foundation’s mission have made her one of our promoters and one of our fundamental pillars. She contributes with her time to launch initiatives that financially support our activity and give a voice to the protagonists of our projects, moving many people to also support us with their generosity.
Initially, Maria got to know our work through her son Enric, who was then the director of Humanitarian Aid. It was he who encouraged her to join as a volunteer when he took early retirement.
Enric spent 6 months in a refugee camp in Za’atari, Jordan, and his experience and personal testimony had a special influence on his mother. Maria recalls with emotion: “All that was achieved there with the young people, awakening their potential, the joy they transmitted…”.
In particular, he recalls the overcoming story of a young man with a disability who lived in this refugee camp and participated in the project that the Foundation was carrying out at the time to improve the life and integration of people like him. This work included the provision of mobility aids, physiotherapy sessions and activities such as inclusive theater. Thanks to the latter, many young people discovered their vocation in acting, experiencing full inclusion and without suffering discrimination. “Because of his disability, his own parents kept him hidden at home and he didn’t interact with anyone, but thanks to the work of the Foundation, he had the opportunity to develop his gifts as a show director and start his own professional path,” Maria recounts with emotion.
“From the beginning, what struck me most about the Foundation was its commitment to upholding the dignity of women,” an aspect of our mission with which Maria says she feels particularly identified, as well as with the work we do in the countries where we are present to facilitate the integration of young people with disabilities.
Furthermore, Maria explains that this commitment to women and, in general, to promoting the value and dignity of people, was what mainly motivated her to collaborate with us then and continues to motivate her today. “I believe that the values that the Foundation promotes through the education and professional training of the people who participate in its projects are essential to achieve the change we seek and need in society,” she adds.
In this sense, Maria also considers the Foundation’s uninterrupted and continuous work in many of the regions where it develops its projects to be an advantage, since “working in the same country, in collaboration with local organizations, considerably facilitates the personal and professional development of its people”.
“We have many possibilities to develop ourselves personally and professionally, but why not help a young person or a woman to have an opportunity as well, even if they live in another part of the world with fewer options?” points out Maria. Thus, she expresses her wish that, in this new year that we are starting, from Fundación Promoción Social we will continue working to offer the same training and professional development opportunities to women as to men, to continue advancing on the road to equality.