The Association of Vocational Training Centres FPEmpresa attended the final gala of the 12th edition of GIRA Jóvenes this Tuesday, 25th of June, held at the Coca-Cola offices in Madrid, in order to announce the winners of the rural and urban categories. This project, which aims to promote entrepreneurship and support youth employability, has counted for the second consecutive year with the participation of FPEmpresa and its 38 associated centres. In total, 764 young people from 31 Spanish localities have participated in the 2024 edition.
The ‘Beeda’ project of the EFA Fonteboa de Coristanco (A Coruña), in the rural category, and the ‘Proyecto Isla’ of the IES Escuela de Hostelería y Turismo de Alcalá de Henares (Madrid), in the urban category, have been chosen as winners of the award for transformative entrepreneurship projects in the 12th edition of GIRA Jóvenes. Both initiatives have stood out for their ability to respond to environmental and social challenges, and also for generating a positive impact on the environments and communities to which they belong.
The winning teams were also awarded technological equipment that will help them to enrich their future careers. The winning projects beat six other finalists in rural and urban areas, which were the following schools: IES Consuelo Aranda (Valencia), IES Alonso Quijano de Quintanar de la Orden (Toledo), IES Puente Ajuda (Badajoz), CPIFP San Blas (Teruel), Institut Pedralbes (Barcelona) and CPIFP Los Viveros (Seville).
Yolanda González, Deputy Director General of Vocational Training at the Ministry of Education and Vocational Training, and Carmen Gómez-Acebo, Director of Sustainability at Coca-Cola Europacific Partners Iberia, highlighted ‘the effort and dedication of all the participating teams’. ‘We are very proud to be able to contribute to your personal and professional development’, added Gómez-Acebo.
Winning projects The project called ‘Beeda’ proposes a solution to guarantee pollination and, therefore, the biodiversity of our territory, ensuring the availability of sufficient pollinators both in the ecosystem and in the existing fruit and vegetable productions. To achieve this, it is proposed to connect beekeepers, farmers, society and technology in order to improve fruit and vegetable production, honey production and the social valuation of beekeeping as a means of conserving biodiversity.
For its part, the ‘Island Project’ aims to promote actions to reduce unwanted loneliness. To this end, they propose the creation of an association to implement a programme of leisure, culture and nature activities for socially vulnerable people in the town of Alcalá de Henares, serving as a model for many others.
The programme includes indoor activities in a cultural centre of the city, sports activities in the facilities of a municipal centre and the organisation of cultural and natural routes to discover the heritage of the town. On the other hand, the eight finalist teams, during the next few days, will have the opportunity to visit and get to know closely leading companies in sustainability, social impact and rural entrepreneurship such as Chep, Soulem or Mobu.
In addition, all the participating groups have received training in transversal competencies provided by the Fundación Universidad y Empresa, as well as a practical learning process led by Youth Business Spain and AlmaNatura for the development of their impact projects.
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