Last Friday, the Archbishop of Urgell (Catalonia, Spain, Pyrenees), Joan-Enric Vives, as President of Caritas d’Urgell, signed an agreement with the director of the CaixaBank Institution Center Catalonia, Joaquim Macià, according to which CaixaBank, in collaboration with “la Caixa” Welfare Projects, donates 25,000 euros to Caritas. The donation will be distributed among the five centers of care that Caritas has in the Diocese of Urgell: La Seu d’Urgell, Puigcerdà, Tremp, Vielha, and Balaguer.
The aid is mainly aimed at people at risk of social exclusion, a situation that currently affects one in five inhabitants of Catalonia. At present, this risk also affects many people who have a job, due to precarious work.
Three out of four people have housing problems and difficulty accessing medicines or social care services. There is also a high incidence of isolation due to the exhaustion of social and family protection networks. The poverty rate is highest among women, people between the ages of 45 and 54, immigrants and single or large families. The budget that Caritas Urgell has allocated to social assistance is currently 170,000 euros.