SANTA CRUZ DE TENERIFE, Jan 6 (EUROPA PRESS) –
The Vice Presidency of the Government of the Canary Islands has granted in 2021 some 1.5 million euros in aid to 60 social groups, “which shows the sensitivity of the Government with the most vulnerable sectors of society,” according to the head of the department and counselor of Finance, Budgets and European Affairs, Román Rodríguez. In the same way, support was also given to those affected by the La Palma volcano, through purse cards managed by the Red Cross.
The subsidies cover different organizations and non-profit entities, such as the Food Banks, Cáritas or the Red Cross in the capital islands which, due to their very size when acting throughout the Archipelago, accounted for almost half of the aid granted. The rest was distributed among cultural, sports and disability care groups in various Islands.
These grants are part of the line of cooperation opened by the Vice Presidency with the so-called Third Sector and which have made it possible to contribute to the execution of projects of special social sensitivity throughout the Archipelago, Rodríguez stressed.
Among the beneficiary entities are the Lanzarote Disabled Association (Adislan), the Cruz Blanca Foundation, in Tenerife; Adepsi, in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria; Radio Ecca; the Yrichen Foundation; the Alejandro Da Silva Foundation against Leukemia; the Down Syndrome Association of Las Palmas and the Trisomics 21 Association of Tenerife; the Adissur Association; the Amador Frontera Association of El Hierro or the Tenerife Breast Cancer Association AMATE.
The general director of Institutional Relations of the Vice Presidency, Carmen Nieves Gaspar, explained that these organizations “demand more than ever help from the public to compensate for that part of support that the private sector has stopped giving them, due to the evident difficulties we are going through” .
In any case, Gaspar indicated that knowing that “there is still a lot to do and that this is just one more grain of sand, each contribution contributes to making that great mountain grow that we all have to lift, and thereby achieve a better society and more fair, a small part of the many resources managed by the administrations, which we must not understand as the result of the generosity of public managers, but as a manifestation of solidarity of Canarian society as a whole “.
A CATALOG OF SERVICES
It is precisely this commitment that justifies, for example, the contribution of the Vice Presidency to the elaboration of the catalog of services in the Special Employment Centers of the Canary Islands, which was presented in mid-December.
Gaspar recalled that the Association of Special Employment Centers of the Canary Islands groups 23 entities, whose objective is to incorporate people with disabilities into the labor market. These centers currently have about 3,000 employees with functional diversity. The catalog is autonomous in nature and will serve to highlight the social economy companies that operate in the Islands and publicize their activities and location, as well as facilitating contact with them.
The general director stressed that the increasing competitiveness and demands of the labor market make it difficult to integrate people with disabilities or functional diversity, so the action of special centers, in coordination with public administrations, is essential.
In this regard, he explained that the latest report from the Ministry of Labor and Social Economy indicates that the hiring of people with disabilities fell by 30 percent in 2020 and that the group only represents 1.56% of the contracts made during the year 2020, despite constituting 6.2% of the workforce.
