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The Esther Koplowitz Foundation, winner of Punto Radio’s “Protagonists” Award

The Esther Koplowitz Foundation has been given the "Protagonists of the Year 2010" Award in the "Solidarity" category by Punto Radio for its extraordinary work helping society's neediest collectives. The foundation's vice president, Andrés del Río, collected the award on behalf of the Esther Koplowitz Foundation.

The Protagonists Awards, which are now in their fourteenth year, are given in acknowledgement of the year's most outstanding people in the worlds of business, politics, arts, sport, the media and science. The awards coincide with the 40th anniversary of the radio program "Protagonistas" ("Protagonists").

The award ceremony was held at the Barcelona Conference Centre, and awards were given out by journalist Luis del Olmo and Carmen Cervera, the Baroness Thyssen.

The Esther Koplowitz Foundation, created in December 1995 to help society's most disadvantaged people, is the embodiment in institution form of the social activity in which the organisation's founder, Esther Koplowitz, has always been engaged.

The foundation is supported solely and exclusively by Esther Koplowitz's contributions, and it is considered a social charity organisation by the Ministry of Labour and Immigration.

The activities and joint work the foundation does by on its own and with other associations are numerous, and they are aimed at palliating the needs of society's most disadvantaged members. The foundation's most-significant initiatives are designed to help elderly people who have no resources of their own and physically or mentally disabled adults whose families do not have the necessary means to care for them.

From this need there sprang the idea of building and equipping three homes, in Madrid, Barcelona and Valencia, that would improve the quality of life of the elderly and disabled adults (The homes were later donated to the administration) and the idea of enlarging the Nido Foundation and El Despertar Association's Madrid home and day centre for people with profound and severe cerebral palsy. Construction will shortly begin on a new home in Valladolid and another in Valencia.

The Esther Koplowitz Foundation has made a number of contributions, such as its donation of the Da Vinci robot to San Carlos Clinical Hospital in Madrid and its donation of money to finance the recently opened Esther Koplowitz Centre of Biomedical Research in Barcelona.