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Workshop in one of the latest editions of the "Changing lives" programme to promote labour market integration.
- The Endesa Foundation contributes €100,000 to the labour market integration programme of the Integra Foundation to benefit people particularly affected by the COVID-19 crisis.
- The Endesa Foundation's special programmes have already benefited some 80,000 people around Spain since the start of the pandemic.
The Endesa and Integra Foundations have decided to give a new impetus to the Changing Lives programme, which they have been running jointly since 2016 to improve the employability of people at risk of social exclusion, in order to extend its reach to those whose situation has particularly worsened because of the pandemic. The programme aims to improve the quality of life of 300 people by helping them to join the labour market.
The programme offers participants the opportunity to take part in job selection processes. In addition, volunteer Endesa employees will be advising them electronically on how to prepare their CVs and deal with a telephone interview, while offering emotional support to motivate them and help them to regain their confidence.
This extension to the programme, which is being run in Madrid, Barcelona and Seville, targets people who have been most affected by the crisis and are also at extreme risk of social exclusion: homeless people, inmates and ex-inmates, women who have been prostituted or affected by human trafficking, former drug addicts, female victims of gender violence and young people in situations of exclusion
The crisis caused by COVID-19 has had a severe effect on the labour market, changing the lives of many people and families who have been affected by temporary lay-offs or been made redundant, thereby worsening the socio-economic situation of those who are in situations of severe social exclusion.
Before the outbreak of the pandemic, some participants had already begun to get ahead by securing a job. However, COVID-19 has seen them return to the ranks of the jobless and again suffer a high risk of exclusion.
Some have also not been able to take part in selection processes or take up new positions for which they had been selected. In some cases, they were already infected with the virus, or the workplaces feared a possible infection and would not allow them in, or they were living with high-risk individuals, or they lacked viable childcare solutions during the lockdown.
Endesa and its Foundation have been collaborating with the Integra Foundation since 2016 on other social initiatives, in which training, the entry into the labour market of people suffering from social exclusion and corporate volunteering have been key factors in improving the lives of over a thousand people.
The Endesa and Integra Foundations therefore launched the “Changing Lives” programme five years ago in Barcelona. This initiative has gradually spread and is now also up and running in Seville, Madrid and Zaragoza.
Since 2001, the Integra Foundation has helped the most vulnerable people in society to end their exclusion and get ahead, thanks to finding a job.
About the Endesa Foundation
The main aim of the Endesa Foundation, led by Juan Sánchez-Calero (the non-executive chairman of Endesa), is to contribute to social development through educational projects and employment, environmental and cultural training.
The Foundation's educational programmes are fundamentally aimed at fostering innovation in education at all levels and promoting academic excellence at the university level through grants, scholarships and chairs.
Its training for employment projects focus on promoting the talents of people at risk of social exclusion, young entrepreneurs with limited resources and professionals over 50 years of age.
Its environmental projects primarily focus on promoting education, a culture of environmental awareness and energy efficiency.
Among its cultural projects, the most notable are the illumination of artistic monuments, the conservation and dissemination of the historical industrial heritage of the Spanish electricity sector and collaboration with top-level Spanish cultural bodies.
The Endesa Foundation funds and runs programmes and activities that provide humanitarian, health, social, economic and material aid in extraordinary situations such as health crises, natural catastrophes and the like.
Read more at fundacionendesa.org
About the Integra Foundation
The Integra Foundation is a non-profit organisation that works on the labour market insertion of people who belong to groups suffering from severe social exclusion.
Among them are female victims of gender violence, people with disabilities, young people on probation, homeless people, inmates and ex-inmates, long-term unemployed and ethnic minorities, among others. The Foundation serves as a link between institutions, NGOs and companies willing to offer an opportunity to these people.
It was founded in 2001 and since then 15,700 work contracts have been signed by people who have managed to rebuild their lives thanks to finding employment.