La Fundació Ramon Noguera

A)MAIN FACTS ABOUT THE ACTIVITIES OF THE FOUNDATION:

1. History:

The private foundation Ramon Noguera was established in Girona on the 24th of
December 1995, according to an agreement taken in the General Board of the
Associaci? Pro-minusv?lids Ps?quics Angelus with the intention to empower the new
institution to manage all the centres and services of attention to intellectually
handicapped people that had administered until that moment.

The aim the creation of Fundaci? Ramon Noguera was to administrate some previously founded centres and services, as well as creating new ones, addressed to intellectually handicapped people and also children with development disorders.

Its mission is to guarantee and improve the quality of life of these people offering individualized support essential to their personal wellbeing as well as their social integration and self-determination.

The foundation is organized in different business units that manage and run every kind of centres and services to support intellectually handicapped people from the county of Girona, giving priority to Giron?s area, in different fields as the educational, welfare, quality of life, empowerment and practice of sport.

Nowadays, the foundation supports more than 700 people in the following centres and services:

 For children (0-6 years old):

 CDIAP:centre of development and early attention. It was created on the 24th of October 1995. Its main objective is to attend both children from 0 to 5 that already show development disorders or that possibly will suffer from them and their families.

 For adults (from 16 years old):

o Daily centres:
 Taller Ocupacional Montilivi: It is an employment unit located in Montilivi, an area in Girona. It was set up on the 24th of April 1998. Its main goal is to empower and maintain the abilities and capacities of the supported people in order to achieve total social and labour integration so that they can improve the quality of their life.
 CAE: Center of specialized attention. The objective of this unit is to achieve personal and social development that allow their clients and users a better environment adaptation.
 CET ?Taller Montilivi Xirgu?

o Accommodation services:
 Halls of Residence (Resid?ncia Sarri? -20 people-, Resid?ncia Ramon Noguera V- 8 people-, Resid?ncia Fontajau- 30 people-)
 Residential home (Ramon Noguera I- 14 people-, Ramon Noguera II- 10 people-, Ramon Noguera III ? 5 people-, Ramon Noguera IV ? 12 people-, Ramon Noguera VI Llagostera ? 10 people-, Ramon Noguera VII- 9 people- Ramon Noguera VIII- 18 people-)
 Service to support autonomy in their homes

 Other programmes:
 Sport program
 Assistants and volunteers programme
 Innovation and development (in the centre located in the Scientific and Technological Park of University of Girona)
We will focus our attention on CET Taller Montilivi Xirgu. This employment unit was firstly created on the 18th of September in 1992. In 1993, this unit already occupied 8 intellectually handicapped people in gardening services. These employees and around 60 temporaries- people not yet employed- were given support at the employment centre, orientation in the occupational therapy or Special Occupational Centre.

The foundation, together with the well-being and family Department of the Generalitat of Catalonia and Obra Social de Caixa d?estalvi, made possible the creation of new occupational facilities that gave continuity to the project and that reinforced CET?s main goal: to generate employment for a group of disadvantaged people, that is, psychically handicapped ones, with enormous difficulties of social and occupational integration.

Since the project started more than 110 jobs have been offered to handicapped people in four different areas:
1. Gardening: activities carried out in local parks, avenues, gardens, woodlands,
etc.
2. Industrial and collective cleaning services: cleaning activities carried out
in industrial premises and other companies? facilities, schools, markets, public
centres, etc.
3. Car- cleaning: the foundation owns specialized facilities to clean the outside
cleaning of the cars and the inside is manually made. These services are
offered to companies and individuals.
4. Fashion store of clothes and accessories (Lafundaci?): this store sells top brands products and also accessories as craftwork or jewellery designed and handmade in the employment workshop of Montilivi by handicapped employees.
Some of the products that can be found in the store are:
 Fabric sampler, that is, unique top brand clothes that can be bought at
competitive prices.
 Season opportunities of top bran clothes for both men and woman.
 Outlet zone: braod offer of men-woman clothes of other seasons at very interesting prices.
 Design and exclusive jewellery: necklaces, rings, earrings?
On-line shop ?La fundaci??: offers the possibility to buy on-line in Spain
craftwork and jewellery designed and handmade in Montilivi.

2. Who is in the board of Fundaci? Ramon Noguera?
 SALVI AMAGAT I USAN (President)
 MATEU GIN?S I MOTA (Vice-president)
 JORDI MASBERNAT I SAL? (Treasurer)
 LOURDES MARQU?S I PUIG (Secretary)
 JOSEP LLOVERAS I JOS? (Member)
 CARLES GARRIDO I LLOPIS (Member)
 DOLORS PUNSI I GELADO (Member)
 ?SCAR MIR? I QUINTANA (Member)
 PEPITA PERICH I PUJOL (Member)

B) ETHICAL CHALLENGES THIS COMPANY IS ADDRESSING:

From the moment of its creation until now, CET TMX has evolved as a result of internal and organizational changes that have modified the focus of its productive activity.

Since 2000, CET started a viability plan in order to restructure the activities of the company due to their low profitability and because they operated in a unspecialized sector with few possibilities of investment in new technologies.
This viability plan consisted of maintaining CET as a service company which offered gardening, cleaning services, as well as, car wash services. However, they realise of the necessity of operating in different markets, that is, of diversifying their services in order to expand their employment possibilities increasing the amount of opportunities for their employees.

Once these activities were established, in 2006, they decided to open a new shop: ?La Fundaci?? to commercialize, together with the on-line shop, homemade fashion accessories such as necklaces, earrings, rings, crafts, etc. everything done by handicapped employees in the occupational centre.

All these activities were done under some ethical values, as the foundation is
subscribed to the ethical Code DINCAT. Their main ethical values and norms are:

? Ethical values and norms regarding psychical handicapped people: respect,
innovation, motivation, learning, integrity, teamwork.

? Ethical values and norms related to family: communication, cohesion, flexibility,
respect, empathy.

? Ethical values and norms covering societal and labour organizations: service,
social justice, dignity and worth of the person, importance of human relationships, integrity, competence.

C) WHAT MAKES US BELIEVE THIS COMPANY IS REALLY ETHICAL AND WHY WE TRUST IT?

We believe in this company because we think that is really praiseworthy the work they do with handicapped people: Not only they give them therapeutic treatment but they give them the tools to become more independent, self-sufficient and make them feel somebody useful to society. These employees would find it very difficult to find a place to work, and it would be even more difficult to find somewhere to work with all these facilities and special attention.

We really believe in and share the core values of this institution that are aimed to integrate handicapped people in our society. Their projects can be categorised as ethical ones as they involve a part of the society that can not fend for itself, that is, people who are not very often offered this kind of employment opportunities and support services both in their workplace and in their personal life.

?La fundaci?? helps these handicapped people and their relatives. It gives them a job, helps them to learn the know-how to be able to develop it, it makes them feel comfortable and useful to the rest of society. What we feel as being the clue of what they do is not just the fact of contracting disabled people, but making them feel proud of themselves, giving them the opportunity to develop their creativity and make them happy.

Moreover, as it is shown in key figures, the number of people that is supported grows every year, and step by step, since its foundation it has expanded in more work areas and places which we think that reaffirms their ethical contribution to society well-being.

Furthermore, it must be commented that ?La Fundaci?? do not work unilaterally, they receive support from the community of Girona -and in general, from the whole territory of Catalonia- without whom there would have not enough funds to keep growing.

These are some of the reasons that make us believe in the foundation success, ethical concern and contribution to society well-being.

D) POSSIBLE CHALLENGES THE COMPANY WILL FACE IN THE FUTURE:

In the following years, they will face challenges with optimism, trying to make strategic alliances and working hard in innovation and development. They will have to fight in order to be present in all outstanding areas of our society. They will have to work to be an innovative, professional, open-minded, participatory, and social entity.

Moreover, they have to be conscious of the economic and social difficulties they are going to face. For instance, the economic crisis and the onsequential governmental cuts may challenge some of their expansion and innovation plans.

Nevertheless, society is becoming more aware and socially concerned about social inequalities, for this reason we believe that ?La Fundaci?? should focus its economic activities on the production of goods and services as this is a very useful tool to promote their core values and to make other people participate and feel part of the project. By doing this, they will contribute in the social integration of disabled people in order to avoid the risk of social exclusion.

Furthermore, it is important to take into account that innovation is a challenge in crisis times. They should join forces to be more creative, following a clear discipline and methodology to turn good ideas into better projects. For instance, following this philosophy, in 2010 La Fundaci? Ramon Noguera created an innovation and development area jointly with the University of Girona and at this moment they are developing MinAqua project that will contribute to the social innovation.

In conclusion, we believe that if they work hard, promote their values, innovate and become even more creative and proactive, they will have no problem in facing future challenges as they have the tools, people, hope and determination to make it happen.