"When you sail for the first time you realize that the boat has no brakes...", jokes Diego Saavedra. Despite being born in A Coruña and rowing with his father as a young man, he had never driven a boat on the open sea. In 2007, when he was just 32 years old, his life changed forever after he was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. Their mobility was reduced thereafter. He had to resort to a wheelchair. The sea seemed to be far from his reach. But just the opposite happened: he ended up at the helm of a small sailboat with a little help.

"It's impossible to be unhappy when it makes you forget everything you've lost, everything you're missing, and still get to port," Diego confesses in the documentary Vidas contadas: 14 historias de overcome while enjoying the waves and the wind as a participant in the Healthy Physical Activity Effort program aimed at people with and without functional diversity. And he doesn't seem to be bad at all. This year, in fact, he has won the Esfuerza Nautical Open Regatta held in his city.

"Sailing gives me freedom," he sums up in Madrid at the presentation of an audiovisual project that allows us to learn about several life lessons in addition to his own. Like that of the Venezuelan Bárbara Jota, who arrived in Vigo at the age of 15 and without having heard a word of Galician in her life. "My first class at school was history," she recalls. Or that of Mari Pepa Subires, from Malaga, who suddenly found herself at home "with nothing to do or excitement" after being fired from the cleaning company where she worked. Or like that of Barcelona's Rosa Morillas, who lived the last months of her mother's life accompanied by a psychologist specialising in palliative care.

The four met yesterday at CaixaFórum Madrid to share their experiences in different social support programmes of the La Caixa Foundation, aimed at each stage of life and aimed at breaking the cycle of hereditary poverty through education, training for labour insertion, coping with loneliness or facing the grieving process.

2.7 million Spanish children live in households below the poverty line

The Keys to Social Progress event also served as an opportunity for the La Caixa Foundation to take stock of the work it carries out with a thousand entities and institutions throughout the country so that people in vulnerable situations can develop their potential.

"The inequality gap is widening, especially social exclusion," warned Elisa Durán, deputy director general of the La Caixa Foundation. "We are at a very critical moment and it is urgent to change the model," he said, after detailing that in the entire European Union only Greece, Bulgaria and Romania have worse statistics in this regard than our country. And stressing, in passing, the importance of collaborative philanthropy to raise awareness in society that "social needs are not in another part of the world, but very close to us".

At his side, Marc Simón, deputy director general of the La Caixa Foundation, offered figures on an action plan promoted with the slogan "Progress is only if we all progress". Thus, he reported that currently 2.7 million Spanish children live in households below the poverty line and that CaixaProinfancia serves more than 62,000 children in vulnerable situations and more than 38,000 families.

La Caixa Foundation also released the results of the study Dynamics of multidimensional poverty in Spain and other European countries. Based on the analysis of more than 20 European countries between 2016 and 2020, it reveals that, unlike other countries, ours did not experience a reduction in the incidence of poverty during that period.

Moreover, people living in poverty in Spain are more at risk of suffering from other deprivations such as overcrowding, low wages, low work intensity or poor health, and are less likely to stop suffering from these deprivations, compared to people who are not in poverty.

Social progress in our societies has regressed. The glue has dried

Antón Costas, Professor of Economic Policy at the University of Barcelona

"Our parents and grandparents were able to build a social contract and as long as the glue of that social contract worked, everything got better. But something has happened from the 80s until now. Social progress in our societies has regressed. The glue has dried," denounced Antón Costas, professor of Economic Policy at the University of Barcelona and president of the Economic and Social Council of Spain.

The stories of empowerment in Vidas contadas, directed by filmmaker and photographer Xavier Menós, can be viewed on the website fundacionlacaixa.org/es/vidas-contadas. In addition to the documentary, these stories will be materialized in a calendar – with a story each month – that aims to reach more than one million Spanish households.

Bárbara is now studying to work in a biomedical laboratory in the future. Mari Pepa has once again felt useful as a volunteer for the Mi cachito de huerto project, where she teaches people with functional disabilities how to plant. And Rosa has learned to manage her emotions and look fear in the face.

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