Logroño, (EFE).- The acting mayor of Logroño, Pablo Hermoso de Mendoza, has highlighted the commitment, dedication, freedom and European spirit of the director of Cáritas Luis Lleyda, the editor Julián Lacalle and the journalist María Andrés, distinguished with the insignia San Barnabas 2023.
Hermoso de Mendoza has intervened in an institutional act held at the Logroño City Hall, after delivering these distinctions, granted by the Corporation during the festivities in honor of San Bernabé, patron saint of the city.
The voice of the vulnerable
Lleyda, born in Tudelilla in 1943, was director of Cáritas from 2011 to 2019 and also responsible during that time for Proyecto Hombre and Fundación Cáritas Chavicar.
A volunteer for the entity, faithful to his Christian humanism, he continues to be linked to others through the Santa Teresita Parish and the boards of trustees of the Cáritas Chavicar Foundation and Proyecto Hombre, recalled the acting mayor.
During his leadership of the entity, Cáritas commemorated its 50th anniversary, inaugurated the new headquarters located at Calle Mayor 35, and opened a training space and placement agency in the neighborhood of La Estrella, he recounted, with “new services to adapt to the new needs of vulnerable people”.
In his opinion, Luis has been the face and voice from Caritas of the most vulnerable people and has faced poverty with sensitivity and rigor.
“The reality, the complicated reality, of the invisible, of those people who live on the social margins, of those who, in our neighborhoods, are separated by glass borders, has brought us closer,” he concluded.
indomitable spirit editor
Lacalle, born in Logroño in 1976, founded the Pepitas publishing house in 1998, which this year celebrates 25 years of thought, essays and literature.
“’I don’t know who the great man who invented Logroño was,’ said Rafael Azcona. And then, a publisher named Julián had the brilliant idea of setting up a publishing house named Pepitas that has published everything, or almost everything, that Azcona wrote”, recalled the acting mayor.
“I can’t think of greater generosity, and literary genius,” he assured, “a kind of treasure for humanity that we have in this provincial city.”
Julián’s freedom, courage, humor, independence and creative style are, for Hermoso de Mendoza, “authentic life preservers of everyday life.”
Lacalle is “an editor with an indomitable spirit in an indomitable editorial for also indomitable readers. An editor with critical thinking. An independent publisher.
The voice of Logroño in the EU
Between Logroño and Europe, María Andrés, born in 1977 in the capital of La Rioja, is a journalist specializing in international politics and the European Union, and director of the Office of the European Parliament in Spain since 2016.
Previously, she was the press officer of the European Parliament Office in Spain and has been linked to the European Union since 2003, when she became the European Parliament’s Press Officer.
She managed relations with correspondent journalists for years and was editorial coordinator of a group of more than 20 press officers for the publication of the newsletter ‘The Week Ahead’ in 22 languages, recalled the acting mayor.
“I believe in the solidarity that we have been building in recent years, a common and coherent solidarity”, he added.
“María, a brilliant woman, the voice of Logroño in the European Union, is an ambassador in our land of Europeanist values and a defender of the importance of municipalism in Union policies. From today she, distinguished from Logroño ”, she has concluded.