- The NGO helps people with intellectual disabilities to take their place in the world with dignity.
- Envera serves 4,800 people each year and provides stable employment for more than 850 under the slogan '.We can all be the best at something'.
Madrid | August 24, 2022
In 1977, a group of Iberia employees, fathers and mothers of people with intellectual disabilities, joined forces to help their children get ahead. "Back then they were called subnormal," they recall. Today, 45 years later, Envera celebrates more than four decades of social achievements as a professionalized, non-profit organization open to society as a whole, accompanying people with disabilities throughout their life cycle with a clear objective: that all of them can take their place in the world with dignity.
"Now we talk about influential people because we know that they positively impact the lives of those around them, their families, friends and co-workers. There is still a long way to go on the road to equal opportunities, but thanks to the people who have supported us, the administrations and the companies that collaborate with Envera, we have achieved things we could only dream of 45 years ago, when there was practically nothing. We could not have achieved it alone," says José Antonio Quintero, president and one of the founding fathers of Envera.
The organization, which has offices in Madrid, Barcelona, Malaga and the Canary Islands, serves more than 4,800 people with intellectual disabilities and their families every year in its Early Care and Neurodevelopmental Services, Training and Job Placement, Occupational and Day Centers, Residences and Guardianship Foundation; and provides stable employment to nearly a thousand professionals, of whom more than 850 are disabled. In addition, it has 300 athletes in its Club Ícaro-Envera, 250 volunteers and more than 300 public and private entities that collaborate with its social action.
For Envera's CEO, Enrique Grande, "putting people with intellectual disabilities at the center of society and in the focus of companies' selection processes is one of the greatest achievements to which Envera has contributed, doing so also in sectors as specialized as the aeronautical sector".
Grande recalls that in Spain there are more than 4.3 million men and women with some type of disability, a figure that, far from decreasing over the years, is on the rise.
Throughout these nine decades, the men and women of Envera have faced with remarkable success important challenges, some unimaginable for everyone, which have deepened the vulnerability of people with intellectual disabilities. Faced with situations such as having to tear down mountains of prejudice every day, unprecedented economic crises or the worst pandemic of the last century from which we are still emerging, people with disabilities have proven to be an example of overcoming and resilience, putting on the social board the importance of diversity, inclusion and sustainability, values that all of them bring to the organizations in which they are integrated.
Envera's people with intellectual disabilities have been recognized in various fields such as sports (the organization recently celebrated the 30th anniversary of inclusive sports with Vicente del Bosque as sponsor); institutional, with the Justice and Disability Forum Award granted by the General Council of the Judiciary; the business world, with awards such as the Influentials Awards for the Most Sustainable Organization or the National Award for Excellence in Inclusion and Occupational Risk Prevention; and in the media, having received several awards from Corresponsables Iberoamérica or the Golden Antenna from the Federation of Spanish Radio and Television Associations.
Awards aside, Envera carries out innovative and quality social projects with the firm commitment to continue providing stable and protected employment to those who have it hardest. An example of this are initiatives such as the signing of agreements with the Community of Madrid, the Colmenar Viejo City Council and the Ministry of Economy for the insertion of people with disabilities in the public administration; the circular economy project Envera Inclusion Pointrecognized at the UN headquarters in Vienna; the short film Michael's Flight which has traveled around the world; Radio Terrícolaan open window to the world of disability through the solidarity airwaves offered by the Internet; the coordination of the Competitive Social Responsibility Table Madrid Foro Empresarial, from where Envera helps companies to implement strategic policies for their CSR; or the Solidarity Recycling Center that has allowed the creation of a network of alliances with other entities such as the Red Cross, Mensajeros de la Paz, Cáritas, CEAR, Volunteers for Africa, AUDE, Talía Concertante, Aviación sin Fronteras and many others with which Envera's people with disabilities have become protagonists of solidarity, donating essential materials to vulnerable people and families both inside and outside Spain.
All in all, and especially thanks to the work of the professionals who make up Envera and the trust of families, the organization is a benchmark in social and labor inclusion whose work has an impact on eleven of the seventeen Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) set in Agenda 2030 by the UN.
"Thanks to all the women and men of Envera who every day demonstrate that barriers can and must be broken down, that we are all important and that we all count, and heartfelt thanks to all the people, institutions and companies that dedicate their efforts to achieving equal opportunities and social justice. Here's to another 45 years of social conquests," concludes Quintero.
