Fundación MAPFRE Social Outreach Awards: a vital recognition

“Today, with societies lulled into complacency and distracted by other less relevant debates, there is a greater need than ever for role models, people or institutions that think and work to change what is not right, that act to improve the lives of others, like the winners of these awards.” With a speech addressing the need to work together to end the tragedies, conflicts and famines suffered by so many millions of people around the world, Antonio Huertas, President of Fundación MAPFRE, opened the ceremony for the Fundación MAPFRE 2025 Social Outreach Awards.

“In 2025, we are celebrating the 50th anniversary of Fundación MAPFRE. Five decades of intense social commitment focused on people, helping where others are unable to reach, and always with an inclusive outlook and an outstretched hand, especially toward society’s most vulnerable, those who suffer most from the inequalities and lack of empathy and compassion that this highly digital and fast-paced world brings”, said Huertas, who continued: “As I said, we need role models and today’s award winners are most certainly that. Fundación MAPFRE wants their contributions to be recognized and to set an example to help us return to the humanistic path that we should never have strayed from. People helping people, with names and surnames, with faces, with feelings and with needs, where we are all, to a greater or lesser extent, called upon to help, especially those of us who, as I have said on other occasions, have had the enormous good fortune to be born in the kinder part of the planet.”

The winners of this edition are clearly among those much-needed role models. In their speeches, when receiving the awards from Her Majesty Queen Sofia, they told us about their motivations and commitment.

The first award presented was the Julio Castelo International Insurance Award, which recognizes excellence in scientific research that promotes insurance culture and social protection. This year’s winner was Alejandro Izuzquiza, former Director of Operations at the Insurance Compensation Consortium, an example of how public-private partnerships are very effective for citizens.  Izuzquiza devoted 27 years of his life to this organization, which is unique in the world, the envy of all countries, and which, among other activities, manages extraordinary events such as the aftermath of the DANA storm.

During his speech, Izuzquiza expressed his gratitude for the award as “the best possible way to end my career, after 44 years spent defending the general interests of the public sector, protecting policyholders, and promoting collaboration and understanding between public and private insurance.”

The Award for the Project or Initiative with the Best Social Impact was given to the project “100,000 Floors to Play On”, a joint initiative of Habitat for Humanity and the Inter-American Cement Federation.  The aim of this project is to gradually replace the dirt floors that still exist in hundreds of thousands of homes in Latin America and the Caribbean with concrete flooring. This is much healthier, especially for young children who crawl and play on the floor during their early years. Cesarina Fabián, national director of Habitat for Humanity Dominican Republic, accepted the award, which is a source of pride for her organization and, at the same time, a renewed responsibility. “Each concrete floor represents more than just a material improvement: it is health, it is protected childhood, it is the future”, she declared, dedicating the award to the families and communities that have benefited.