The social mission of the FC Barcelona Foundation focuses on three main areas: education and protection, health and emotional well-being and community action. The aim of all the programs we develop is to promote social inclusion, gender equity, diversity and the prevention of violence using sport as a tool for social transformation and to improve the quality of life of children and teenagers Last season more than 500,000 children and adolescents living in situations of vulnerability and social risk in prisons, hospitals, reception centers or refugee camps were beneficiaries of the various programs of the foundation, which currently works in more than 30 municipalities of Catalonia and in 16 countries around the world, where it carries out more than 54 projects. The foundation, which works with a team of qualified professionals with experience in the social, educational and health sectors, in alliance with high-level entities such as UNHCR, Save The Children, UNICEF, World Vision or the Red Cross, among others, it brings the FC Barcelona brand closer to thousands of people from all over the world, who value the social commitment of an entity that is “more than a club”.
The communication of the social actions in which the foundation works is certainly not an easy task, although it may seem so. Sports – and non-sport – information always comes first. And this is what we have made continuous efforts to explain to each other, already since 2003, when the FC Barcelona Foundation began collaboration with Unicef ​​with the implementation of health programs in Africa and in which the first team male came to wear the logo of this humanitarian organization on the front of the shirt for the first time in the history of the club, and until now, with the new global alliance with UNHCR, the United Nations agency for refugees , a brave and committed step by Barça in favor of refugees and displaced persons and with whom we are implementing projects for the benefit of refugee boys, girls and young people on four continents. In November, for example, President Laporta visited Colombia to learn first-hand about the refugee project on the border with Venezuela, and despite the fact that it is a very important issue, the vast majority of the media here only published a few statements from the president about the first football team. It would be good if the media and advertising agencies, among others, were more interested in reporting on the actions generated by social entities such as the FC Barcelona Foundation in order to sensitize readers and the general public and, in return , create a demand for information on social aspects.
It is also important not to confuse the work of the Barça Academies, sports centers to spread the Barça brand and its way of playing around the world, creating and searching for new talent, with the work done by the foundation. They are two completely different areas of action. In this sense, we would have liked Mr. LluÃs Bassat should have contacted the foundation before writing an article like the one he published in this newspaper on April 28, in which he confuses Barça’s sports academies with the foundation’s programs. Or before saying that, on the t-shirt, instead of the Unicef ​​logo, “we now wear another brand, with other objectives” when on the t-shirt we wear the logo of Acnur, which is the Agency for United Nations for Refugees.
As a partner of Barça that he is and as a prestigious publicist, we would have liked to receive the offer of his services if he really believes that the work of the foundation is not well known and we would have sincerely thanked him for the offer. But it is not clear if the article was exactly in this direction.
