Fundación MAPFRE launches projects to combat poverty and social exclusion in Chile

Fundación MAPFRE earmarked an extraordinary 2021 budget for Chile to deal with the emergency and socio-economic crisis caused by COVID-19, as part of this year’s supplementary aid of 10 million euros in Latin America. The company wants to use this to launch more than 60 projects in the region as a whole, with which it hopes to help above 200,000 people.

In Chile, the foundation’s activities are aimed at reducing malnutrition and social exclusion, as well as promoting employability, education and entrepreneurship. All of these initiatives will be developed in collaboration with around thirty volunteers and social organizations, such as Instituto Generando Halcones, Fundación Agrega and Associations in the Santiago Metropolitan Region, among others.

Ensuring basic nourishment and nutrition

The COVID-19 pandemic will bring about an unprecedented food crisis affecting more than 85 million children in Latin America, according to the FAO. Fundación MAPFRE wants to help alleviate this crisis by distributing nutritional supplements that do not require refrigeration and are endorsed by the World Food Programme to ensure basic nutrient levels in babies and children up to 10 years of age.

In Chile, a food program is carried out with the Nuestro Hijos Foundation aimed at 190 children and adolescents with cancer and destined to buy more than 2,500 units of food supplement, which will benefit nutritional requirements. In this sense, Fundación MAPFRE has also allocated 22,800 euros to the food aid program for Associations in the Metropolitan Region of Santiago. With this, he wants to remedy the lack of food and income in these family groups, who will receive inputs to prepare 200 food rations for 50 entities.

The urgency of digitization

Integrating people with any type of disability into the workplace is another objective that Fundación MAPFRE set itself for 2021. These people, who are among the most affected by the pandemic in Latin America, live in places where there are hardly any social programs to help them. The Foundation will deploy activities in 11 countries across the region, including Chile, where it set itself the specific objective of helping people with disabilities—who have been worst hit by COVID-19—to enter the labor market. In Chile, in collaboration with Fundación FOAL, it will provide a three-month training course for people with visual impairment and will offer eight scholarships for internships at local companies to contribute to integrating these people in the world of work.

Antonio Huertas: “No one can stand in the way of solidarity”

“We hope things will change and for the better. No pandemic is going to stop us from keeping our commitment to social progress,” said Antonio Huertas, President of Fundación MAPFRE, who referred to this extraordinary provision of 45 million euros over two years as a “plan aimed at saving as many lives as possible and protecting the most vulnerable in society and those fighting coronavirus on the front line.” He also noted that the Foundation, which in 2020 suffered its “greatest challenge” since being established 45 years ago, is also supporting research and helping prevent the social consequences of the virus from increasing the effect of poverty and inequality, thanks to the help of its volunteers, who will help them again in this endeavor. “When it comes to solidarity, once the ball gets rolling, there is no stopping it,” he said.