Ferrovial contributes to renovating the Spanish Red Crosss food distribution centres

Rafael del Pino, Chairman of Ferrovial, and Juan Manuel Suárez del Toro, Chairman of the Spanish Red Cross, have signed a cooperation agreement to improve the infrastructure and equipment at the humanitarian organisation's food distribution centres in Madrid, Seville, Barcelona and Murcia. Ferrovial will allocate 100,000 euro to upgrading and refurbishing the facilities, providing support to over 12,000 people. The initiative is an expression of the company's commitment to local development in the communities where it operates. "At a time like the present, we are committed to working with the Spanish Red Cross to distribute food to those who need it. Our business focuses on improving infrastructure and services, but we have always assisted initiatives that benefit the community. For that reason, we are very satisfied with this project with the Red Cross, since we see it as responding to a social problem," said Rafael del Pino, Chairman of Ferrovial. "In the current socio-economic situation, there is a growing need and we face the major challenge of attending to the most vulnerable victims of the crisis, who are having to resort to organisations like the Red Cross. For that reason, in 2012 we launched the "Ahora + que nunca" (Now more than ever) call for aid with the goal of attending to an additional 300,000 people in situations of extreme vulnerability, in addition to the two million people we serve each year as part of our social programmes. The assistance of private enterprise is vital to achieve this goal; for that reason, we are grateful for all the support that Ferrovial is giving, as it will make us more efficient in helping the people we serve," said Juan Manuel Suárez del Toro, President of the Spanish Red Cross. Within its Corporate Responsibility strategy, Ferrovial contributes to social action initiatives along three vectors: the 'Social Infrastructure' programme, through which the company provides financial and technical assistance to develop water and sanitation facilities in Africa and Latin America; the 'Stronger Together' programme, under which employees donate part of their salary to social projects; and provision of professional advice to NGOs. Having directly assisted over one million people affected by the crisis, and with one million members and over 200,000 volunteers, the Spanish Red Cross is one of the humanitarian institutions with the broadest reach in Spain. It assists vulnerable groups in Spain and other countries through preventive, care, rehabilitation and development activities, performed primarily by volunteers.