Spain: Gered wins the prize “Terres de Girona”

The Diputació de Girona has awarded the prize ?Terres de Girona? to the association GERD (Grup Editor de la Revista del Discapacitat) for the work it is doing in Cuba. This is a prize intended to recognise the organisations and individuals carrying out solidarity-based projects in developing countries and particularly those the least publicised but nevertheless the most effective. The first contact between this association and Cuba resulted from some holidays which members of the former spent in this island four years ago, when they got in touch with disabled individuals lacking the most elementary things. This motivated the members of GERD to start sending technical materials, such as wheelchairs and crutches. This led to an institutionalised relationship with ACLIFIM, an association which gathers all the physically disabled individuals in the island, a relationship from which co-operation projects ultimately emerged. An assembly line of wheelchairs was created in a special employment centre in Guantánamo, the poorest area in Cuba, through the pieces sent from Catalonia. The project has finally evolved towards the manufacturing of the technical, plastic and metallic components of the wheelchairs in the island itself. This alternative is more cost-saving and allows for more jobs to be created for Cuban disabled people. www.gerdcoopera.com