“It is an important moment in my life”, with this confession, Princess Leonor took a step forward yesterday in the speech at the delivery of the Princess of Girona Awards. The daughter of Felipe VI is the president of the Foundation that bears the oldest title of the Heiress, who for the first time uttered words loaded with personal meaning in a ceremony held in a hotel in Caldas de Malavella, on the outskirts of the capital Girona. The day before, Doña Leonor set foot in Girona for the first time during a visit to the Foundation’s offices. “Being in Girona is a joy,” she said in the perfect Catalan with which she opened her words, which she also pronounced in Spanish and English.
After five years of absence, the ceremony is held again in the province, stronghold of the most radical independence movement. For this reason, the Princess, aware that it is a turning point, assured that returning to the city: “It makes this award ceremony a very important moment for me,” she said. The Princess pronounced her words in an evening ceremony, which she attended together with her parents and Infanta Sofía.
In the morning, the daughters of the Kings participated in a concert workshop with young winners from previous editions. Doña Leonor assured that they had spoken “of the concerns of our generation, of what it means to be trained, of how to find and develop one’s own talent, of preparing for new skills through innovative educational models, of the awareness of living in a balanced way in our planet, of vital projects when you are twenty or twenty-five years old”.
The Princess of Asturias finished her school education on May 20 after completing the international baccalaureate at the UWC Atlantic College in Wales. On August 17, she will enter the General Military Academy of Zaragoza to begin three years of military training, and on October 31, she will reach the age of majority and must swear to the Constitution. “I am almost 18 years old and I am about to start a new stage with a period of military training,” Doña Leonor recalled. “Beyond my responsibility -she said- I am happy because I know how much the Spanish value our Armed Forces. It is an important moment in my life”, she summarized. Then, after a second’s pause, the Princess was sincere in her most personal statements since she was known: “I feel very eager and convinced to continue learning and giving my best encouragement to strengthen values ??with which I have grown,” she assured. .
This year the Princess of Girona Awards recognize the career and talent of the violinist María Dueñas; the engineer and founder CEO of Open Cosmos, Rafel Jordá; to the Doctor in Biomedicine and professor at Yale, Marc Schneeberger Pané; to the art therapist and founder of the Palliative Art Foundation, Silvia Fernández Cadevall and to the CEO and co-founder of the Kidogo child care network, Sabrina Habib. For the Heiress, they transmit “the ability to perceive reality and live with the enthusiasm of my age.”
In a conference focused on youth, Felipe VI also wanted to dedicate his words to this sector of the population, more so after learning in the morning the conclusions of the report “Paths that converge: young people and companies facing the challenge of talent” which reveals that 75% of companies have difficulties finding the talent they need, a percentage that rises to 93% in technology companies. “Talent is a virtue of the human being, without a doubt, but the key to success consists in providing the necessary care at each stage,” said the King.
The Monarch was very concerned about the young people and asked that they be provided with “stability and a guarantee of the future” to move forward. “The transformations that we are experiencing influence and condition them especially -beyond clichés and assumptions- and the dialogue between the different generations can provide more definitive, more conclusive, more solid solutions,” said the head of state. “A constructive and participatory dialogue that is framed within the principles and values ??of democratic societies, which promote spaces and opportunities for this interaction to be possible,” he recalled. “It is within the framework of Democracy and Freedom that youth have always found more progress and development,” he summarized in his plea for the prosperity of youth.
Don Felipe and Doña Letizia have followed this year the second edition of the Talent Tour, an initiative that the FPdeGi began in 2022 and that travels through cities in Spain attracting young talent and in each city announces one of the winners in the different categories of the Awards. Felipe VI assured after this monitoring of the activities: “We are especially excited to see how, thanks to the Tour, the name of the Foundation and of Girona spreads throughout Spain and its repercussion in each of the cities where it stops, becoming an asset and an excellent opportunity wherever it is carried out”.
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