News

The social SMS numbers Andorra Telecom provides for entities and NGOs working in the field of solidarity already have their beneficiaries. Five entities from the country which submitted their applications in response to the telecommunications operator’s public call will receive a three-digit landline number to raise funds. The amounts raised by all the SMS messages sent to the assigned numbers will go to the beneficiary entities, in full and without any costs.

The successful applicants are AMIDA (the Andorran Association for People with Functional Diversity), AUTEA (the Andorran Association for People Affected by Autism), Cooperand amb Llatinoamèrica, Infants del món and Laika, as announced at the press conference which took place on Monday, attended by several representatives of the NGOs.

AMIDA will allocate the number 603 to a project designed to popularise the figure of the sexual assistant for people with functional diversity. This initiative revolves around a presentation by Antonio Centeno, a social activist on behalf of functional diversity and the driving force of the documentary titled “Yes, we fuck”. The talk, aimed at people with functional diversity, relatives, psychologists and educators, will be complemented by a round table designed to generate debate and increase awareness of people with functional diversity.

AUTEA (the Andorran Association for People Affected by Autism) will receive the social SMS number 601 to finance its third AUTEA calendar for 2018. This is a project to publicise and raise awareness of autistic spectrum disorders among the Andorran population with the children who suffer from them. The publication, which is celebrating its third year, has a different leitmotiv each year. This year, the children will be sharing the spotlight with popular figures from the world of entertainment and sport in a calendar which will be put on sale.

Cooperand amb Llatinoamèrica, which will administer number 602, has presented Un Llibre-Un Futur (Cadena solidària 2018),a project for cooperation between Andorran and Bolivian schoolchildren. The programme seeks to educate the young people of the country in values such as solidarity, cooperation and empathy by means of exchange. The training of the pupils by the educators will enable them to carry out work and activities which they will later transfer to the classrooms of schools for disadvantaged pupils in Bolivia. The plan includes providing the above centres with educational material and expendable items.

605, the SMS number assigned to Laika, the animal protection association, will be used to collect funds to maintain the cat rescue centre located on the ground floor of a building in the former main square in Sant Julià, in operation since this year. This facility seeks to house abandoned cats for which there is no room at the national centre. The project focuses on taking the animals off the streets, on veterinary maintenance and follow-up and on socialisation, so that they can be adopted more quickly.

As for Infants del món, it will use number 604 to obtain funds for its educational project in the home the entity has in Cambodia, as well as tutoring for children from 11 towns in the Rohal commune to complement the education they receive in the overcrowded schools. The main aim of the programme is for the primary school children to complete the cycle knowing how to read and write. The subjects taught there include Khmer (the Cambodian language), mathematics, English, traditional dances, visual arts and reading.

Inés Martí, from Andorra Telecom’s Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) area, is highly satisfied with how well the first social SMS call has been received by the entities. “We are proud to support and contribute to the promotion of projects conducted by entities which perform basic tasks in society, often with very limited means and little public projection,” she declared. Martí encouraged the other associations working in the local sphere to compete in the forthcoming calls.

The social SMS will last one year. The rate for each of the SMS messages received will be one euro and the funds raised will be allocated to each entity in full.

The assigned numbers are as follows:

601         AUTEA

602         Cooperand

603         AMIDA

604         Infants del món

605         Laika