Fundação Eugénio de Almeida

description of organisation

The Eugénio de Almeida Foundation (EAF) is a private institution of public interest, based in Évora, Portugal. Its mission seeks the integrated development of the Évora region, by creating cultural, educational and social opportunities for all people. Its main core activities are focused on the promotion of human development trough capacity building of non-profit organizations; increases process of social innovation and entrepreneurship; promote active citizenship and qualified volunteering, develop action-research projects in social development, promote contemporary art and develop services of education by art; others.

It was created in 1963 by Vasco Maria Eugénio de Almeida, a remarkable patron and philanthropist. The Mission of the Foundation is inspired by the humanist and personalist spirit that the Founder indelibly imprinted on it. Through a proactive strategy of sustainable development, the Foundation is guided by a sense of community service, promoting projects and products recognized by their quality, excellence, innovation, and also by their potential to bring positively impacts in the society.

In the pursuit of its Mission, the Foundation shares means and resources with several national and international partners, promoting the economic development and a greater social equilibrium of the community, helping to reduce the consequences of isolation and regional disparities.

In 2013 the Foundation, by the occasion of its 50th anniversary, was awarded by the President of the Portuguese Republic with the Ordem do Infante D. Henrique for services rendered to Portuguese Culture.

Through a proactive strategy of sustainable development, the Foundation is guided by a sense of community service, promoting projects and products recognized by their quality, excellence, innovation, and also by their potential to bring positively impacts in the society. In the pursuit of its Mission, the Foundation shares means and resources with several national and international partners, promoting the economic development and a greater social equilibrium of the community, helping to reduce the consequences of isolation and regional disparities.

At Social and Development Area, Foundation seeks to play a meaningful and effective role into the promotion of human dignity in all its dimensions, considering values of solidarity, social justice and fulfilment of the individual and the community as the pillars for its institutional project. In this respect, it invests in the exercise of full, active and supportive citizenship through the training and qualification of social organizations and players, and through the promotion of action-research projects, particularly in the field of Volunteering. The Foundation has been recognized by it works in along the years, at volunteer program and social-innovation projects. EAF leads a huge volunteering program since 2001, that includes a volunteering centre (with about 1.200 person involved and a network of 60 non profit organisations), social, cultural and health volunteering projects, I&D and others, evolving more than 150 volunteers per year.

The volunteers projects of Eugenio the Almeida Foundation has been several times recognised with difference awards, signs of the quality that we search and try to implement on each one of them. In 2011the Eugénio de Almeida Foundation was distinguished by the President of the National Assembly with the Diploma of Merit “Volunteering, the World Calls for All”, for the active exercise of sharing responsibility for the world.