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ACS
Actividades de Construcción y Servicios

Social initiatives

Each year the ACS Foundation actively works together with associations and non-profit organizations to improve the mobility and integration of physically or mentally challenged individuals. With this objective, and as part of this activity, in 2005 the Reina Sofía Awards of Universal Accessibility to Municipalities, were created together with the Real Patronato sobre Discapacidad (Royal Board on Disability).

This initiative awards “Improved municipal government solutions for the elimination of physical and architectural barriers for the physically or mentally challenged”, and attempt to encourage municipalities to pay attention to the elimination of barriers in relation to transport, building and local town planning. In 2005 the different categories of these awards were given to:

  • Town Council of Breña Alta, on the island of La Palma (Santa Cruz de Tenerife), honored in the category of less than 10,000 inhabitants for developing measures working towards integral accessibility in the life of a municipality. It also develops programs designed to provide attention to and the social and labor integration of disabled individuals.
  • Town Council of Quart de Poblet (Valencia), in the category of municipalities of between 10,000 and 100,000 inhabitants, for developing a complete program of measures working towards accessibility to the urban environment, and information and communication technologies, as well as the social and labor integration of disabled individuals in educational, occupational, leisure, free time and cultural fields. This town council also participates with the CEDAT Foundation of the Polytechnic University of Valencia in the project to form part of the Network of Cities with greatest accessibility.
  • City Council of Málaga, for cities of over 100,000 inhabitants, for efforts based on the principle of universal design, transversal means and measures to improve accessibility. These initiatives are based on every person's right to be able to move around in his environment with ease, the right to education and employment, and the right to information, which includes a sign language interpreter in Municipal Services and a visual signing research project.

As part of the work of the ACS Foundation in collaboration with associations and non-profit organizations, it is important to highlight specific initiatives and agreements developed in 2005:

  1. Agreement with the State Representative Platform of the Physically Challenged (PREDIF) to back educational and business awareness initiatives in various regions of Spain.
  2. Agreement with the Cerebral Paralysis Association (ASPACE), whose aim is to collaborate with this association in its projects for the improvement of the quality of life of individuals with cerebral paralysis or with similar neurological pathologies.
  3. Development of an agreement with FUNDACIÓN ONCE, the main objective of which is to develop two pilot accessibility plans at the National Park of Doñana and the Natural Park of Benasque - Monte Perdido. Steps are currently being taken with the body of National Parks and with the Biodiversity Foundation of the Ministry of the Environment, in order to be able to make these pilot plans a reality with the projected investments therein.
  4. Development of an Agreement with the Real Patronato sobre Discapacidad, chaired by Queen Sofía and dependent on the Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs, for the sponsorship, inter alia, of training on accessibility activities held in different cities of Spain and Havana (Cuba).
  5. Sponsorship and Participation in the National Seminar on Disability:" Universal Accessibility in the XXI Century”, promoted by the Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs through the Royal Board on the Disabled and held in Ponferrada. Its focus was the contribution of new technologies to the improvement in the quality of life of handicapped individuals.
  6. Agreement with the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid to carry out research on the "Impact of New Technologies on disabled University students”.
  7. Sponsorship of the promotion of the participation of disabled individuals in sports:
    • Cooperation Agreement with the Spanish Paralympics Committee, in order to collaborate in the project of Aid to Paralympics Sports.
    • Sponsorship of the Young Sports Foundation, whose fundamental objective is to encourage sports and the values intrinsic thereto in order to lead to habits favoring social reinsertion and the fostering of solidarity by the population as a whole, and particularly young people.
    • Agreement with the Alcobendas Sports Foundation (FUNDAL), particularly aimed at the integration of disabled individuals in sports.
  8. Extraordinary Sponsorship, at the request of the Spanish University at a Distance, for the hiring of a Spanish sign language interpreter making it possible for a deaf student (who does not speak and has no remaining hearing) to complete psycho-pedagogy studies at the UNED, given the merits she has accumulated in previous studies which resulted in a degree in Psychology…