The figure of Diana Garrigosa (1944-2020) is essential to understanding the vision, attitude, evolution and very existence of the Pasqual Maragall Foundation. In 2008, together with Pasqual Maragall, she promoted the launch of the Foundation in response to the commitment made by Pasqual Maragall (former mayor of Barcelona and former president of the Generalitat of Catalonia) when he publicly announced that he had been diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease. Diana Garrigosa chaired the Pasqual Maragall Foundation from 2014 to 2020.
In memory of his figure and to give visibility to his legacy, the Foundation has created the Diana Garrigosa Awards, awards that this year celebrate their first edition. The objective is to reward two people over 65 years old, with a life path and an outstanding personal and professional career and that, in addition, they are model of active and committed seniority in the defense of social values and rights.
This is an annual award of a single category and without financial endowment, which will have a state or international scope, there may be more than one winner in each edition.
Diana Garrigosa Awards 2022
The Board of Trustees of the Pasqual Maragall Foundation, in this first edition of the awards, has decided to award it to the Honorable. Mrs. Manuela Carmena, magistrate and former mayor of Madrid, and the journalist, Fernando Onega, in recognition of their contribution to giving visibility and highlighting the social contribution of older people.
The awards will be presented on November 14th during the Annual Meeting of the Pasqual Maragall Foundation.
- Manuela Carmena
Born in Madrid in 1944, she has worked as Labor lawyer, judge, magistrate, member of the General Council of the Judiciary and was mayor of Madrid between 2015 and 2019.
Throughout his life, he showed a firm commitment to democratic values and the defense of social causes.
After his retirement He founded, together with a small group of retirees, the company Yayos emprendedores, dedicated to the non-profit marketing of textile creations made by people in prison or in a situation of social exclusion due to unemployment. In addition, Yayos Emprendedores also aims to demonstrate that retirement can be a process of personal reinvention in which retired people, although in a different way, continue working. This is where the Yayos Emprendedores Zapatelas solidarity project, sewing unemployment.
- Fernando Onega
Fernando Ónega was born in Mosterio (Lugo) in 1947. He was press director of the President of the Government, Alfonso Suárez and news director of the Cadena SER, Cadena Cope, director of Onda Cero and has presented news programmes on TVE, Antena3 and Telecinco.
In 2019, he launched 65ymas, an online journal aimed at seniors, to contribute to "breaking the invisibility of older people, ending this complex and fighting its causes", as he stated in his first opinion column in the publication. 65ymas covers a wide spectrum of content, following current events, trying to focus on the service to its readers, which made it become in 2021 a leading newspaper for the senior segment in Spain, with 8 million readers.
Award designed by Cado Manrique
The award is a sculpture that has been specially designed for the Diana Garrigosa Awards by the sculptor Cado Manrique, an artist born on the island of Palma who lives in Girona, where she has her habitual residence. Manrique is a contemporary sculptor with more than 35 years of artistic career. She has a degree in Economics and Fine Arts from the University of Barcelona. Throughout her career, she has held numerous solo and joint exhibitions, winning several awards. Her work has been defined as a metaphor for an abstract architectural idea.
When creating, Cado Manrique explains that he draws on his memories, the idea of intimate space and the social situation of the moment. In this sense, the two sculptures that he has designed and created exclusively for the Diana Garrigosa Awards They are based on the tireless work that the Pasqual Maragall Foundation has carried out in the fight against Alzheimer's., having research as its main pillar, where it has wanted to represent access to a procedure that allows the reestablishment of the transfer from one state to another, in its own words, "the bridge that allows us to restore lost capabilities." The design also recreates the initials of Diana Garrigosa's name, DG.
As in many of his works, the material used has been laser cut corten steel, a very durable and easy to reproduce material.
Diana Garrigosa, a key figure in giving visibility to Alzheimer's
Diana Garrigosa (1944-2020) graduated in Economics from the University of Barcelona (UB) and completed a Master's degree in Economics in Econometrics from the New School for Social Research in New York. She worked at the Municipal Computing Centre of Barcelona City Council, at the Computing Centre of the Faculty of Economics at the UAB and as a computer science teacher at the Aula School in Barcelona.
Wife of the former mayor and former president of the Generalitat Pasqual Maragall, she founded the Pasqual Maragall Foundation with him in 2008. She served as president from 2014 to 2020, dedicating herself to being the visible face of the Pasqual Maragall Foundation and working to promote and advance the search for Alzheimer's and the disease to give visibility to the impact of the disease on affected families.
