An act of generosity

Securing funding is a constant concern for institutions, especially those, like public universities, that develop diverse lines of action and provide a service to society. Funding is typically obtained through budgetary transfers from the government and by competitively applying for grants from public and private entities, particularly in the field of research.

Private patronage is also an option, so public institutions readily seek the support of companies and foundations to carry out specific initiatives. What is less common is for a private entity to voluntarily, and without prior contact, decide to approach a public institution to offer its help. And that is precisely what happened in 2007 with the Pizarroso Foundation.

This is explained by the current president of the organization, Rosa Morell Macaya, who has continued the work of its founder, Josep Pizarroso González, After his death in 2011, I remember the surprise when we first came. The comment was: 'Hey, there's a gentleman here who says he's coming to donate money.' Josep had a rather unconventional way of navigating the world; someone else might have sent letters, but he said: 'We'll take a plane, go there, and knock on the door.' And that's what we did, both at the University of La Laguna and at the University of Barcelona, with which we also have an agreement.

After those very casual beginnings, and after some fruitful conversations, that impulse was formalized in an agreement signed with the then rector Ángel Gutiérrez Navarro, thanks to which a program of aid for students of the degrees in Nursing, Medicine and Pharmacy was created that is still in force in 2023. To date, 85 scholarships have been granted and some people have received the aid for more than a year.

The grants have their own unique features: the amount per person is €7,000, a generous sum because Josep Pizarroso intended for the recipients to be able to dedicate themselves exclusively to their studies. However, the payment is divided into two phases: the first, called the scholarship, amounts to 401% of the total (that is, €2,800) and is granted unconditionally to all selected students. The remaining €4,200 is awarded as a prize only to those who have passed 60 credits during the academic year, thus recognizing their effort.

Family photo with the scholarship recipients in November 2022. Photos: Emeterio Suárez (CC BY 3.0)

The number of scholarships has grown over the years: “We started with two scholarships in the 2008/09 academic year. In 2010/11 there were three, and then, until 2014, we awarded four each year. From 2014/15 onwards, there were seven, and there have even been years when that number has increased, because when we haven't been able to award all the scholarships planned for Catalonia, they have gone to the University of La Laguna. This is also the case if a student has declined the scholarship because they have been awarded one from the Ministry or because they didn't receive the second installment for not completing 60 credits.”.

The foundation's president explains that it's very difficult for a student to maintain the scholarship throughout their entire degree program, as the primary criterion for awarding it is financial, and the odds decrease because each year there are many applications that meet the requirements of the call for applications. "However," she adds, "this year there's a medical student who will be the first to have received the scholarship for all six years of their degree.".

Return what you received

The Pizarroso Foundation scholarships are closely linked to the life journey of their founder. His underlying idea was that, despite coming from a humble background, he was able to pursue his vocation, medicine, thanks to a scholarship that allowed him to study. Therefore, when he had achieved sufficient financial stability, later in his professional career, he decided to dedicate his fortune to providing these grants to people who might have experienced a similar situation to his own childhood.

As Morell explains, “he had to fight to get the help, because in those years, in Spain there were no scholarships, so he started going to different public institutions, explaining his precarious situation and his interest in studying Medicine, and in the end he managed to get the Barcelona Provincial Council to grant him annual funds after demonstrating his academic qualifications and the family's economic situation.”.

What she did was write handwritten letters to various institutions of her time, hoping that someone would eventually take an interest in her case. “Institutions respond when everything is highly regulated, but when it isn't, as it was back then, the response depended a lot on the person you encountered. Unfortunately, that's still sometimes the case. And if we're talking about a time when there wasn't even a regulated procedure, well, it was even more complicated.”.

His persistence paid off, but despite the institutional support he received, the money wasn't enough for Pizarroso to fully develop his career. He had to supplement his income with odd jobs while he studied. This led to his subsequent concern that his foundation's scholarships would ensure that recipients didn't have to face the same situation and could focus exclusively on their academic goals.

The scholarships are awarded both at the University of Barcelona, the city where the foundation is located and where the founder developed much of his career as a surgeon in the public health system, and also in Tenerife, since his mother was originally from the island and, therefore, he wanted to maintain the link with that past of his family because, in fact, until the end of his life, he still had relatives from the Canary Islands.

Rosa Moreel with the Vice-Rector for Students and Employability, Lastenia Hernández.

The influence of his biography on the foundation's activities goes even further: the organization's logo features an image of Mount Teide and another of the Cadí mountains in La Seu d'Urgell (Lleida), because Pizarroso worked weekends for several years at a private hospital in that town and developed a close relationship with its residents. He also enjoyed walking in the area and considered the view of those snow-capped mountains an unparalleled natural spectacle.

Therefore, the scholarship program in Catalonia reserves a specific place for a student registered as a resident in that region. “For a while, he earned extra income working weekends there and felt grateful for the work he was able to do. It all comes down to the same thing: he was generous and wanted to give back, as much as possible, the good things he had in life. He had a strong sense of reciprocity.”.

To be reciprocal

Since generosity was a core value for Josep Pizarroso, the scholarships he created have tried to maintain that spirit and, for this reason, have the official name of “reciprocal scholarships,” a concept that the rules themselves explain: “The beneficiaries commit in the future, within their means, to be protectors of the Foundation and to return the financial support they have received in order to convene new scholarships and thus be able to provide for new scholarship recipients, although this commitment is of a moral nature and does not entail a legal obligation nor does it condition the obtaining and enjoyment of the aid.”.

Rosa Morell clarifies that the Foundation does not expect this condition to be manifested literally through monetary donations. “It’s about highlighting the spirit, that the person who has benefited will consider in the future that, having received this help that allowed them to grow and develop, they should somehow express that reciprocity in their life, at work, and in their relationships. That they consider not becoming a selfish person who only thinks of themselves, but also contribute to what they find around them.”.

In some way, that mentality persists in many of the scholarship recipients, and some of them maintain a connection with the foundation years after their involvement: “For example, four days ago we received a call from a student who graduated five years ago, to explain what he was doing and to thank us. Other students call us to propose some kind of collaboration, offering some of their free time if they can help us with a project.”.

There have also been former scholarship recipients who have collaborated with the University of Barcelona in a mentoring program, contacting high school students who have good academic records but a delicate socio-economic situation, to explain their particular case to them and so that, in some way, "they see themselves in a mirror and understand that they can achieve it.".

This familiarity with the scholarship recipients may stem from the fact that the Pizarroso Foundation is, as its president acknowledges, a very small organization dedicated almost exclusively to awarding these scholarships. Currently, it has nine trustees, including herself, seven of whom come from the fields of medicine and nursing, and two from law, among them Fermín Martín Izquierdo, Head of Student Services at the University of La Laguna, whose effectiveness and commitment to these grants at the Tenerife institution led the foundation to invite him to join its board.

Archive photo of the signing of the agreement in 2007 between the founder, Josep Pizarroso, and the rector Ángel Gutiérrez.

“He has been fundamental in guiding us through all that administrative machinery that was impossible for us to understand and manage, and he has made things extraordinarily easy for us, far beyond his obligations. So much so that, recently, he became a member of the board of trustees because we considered him such a valuable person that we proposed it to him, and he was delighted.”.

The board of trustees holds at least three annual meetings: one for accountability, another to update and approve the scholarship program, and a third to evaluate the foundation's performance that year. It is also a finite entity: “It only has the founder's funds; we haven't wanted to accept public donations because we believe those should go to those who don't have money. This means that when the founder's money runs out, the foundation will cease to exist.”.

Emotional development

While the Pizarroso Foundation's primary activity is awarding scholarships, it has occasionally explored other avenues. For example, in Catalonia, we have already discussed the mentoring program, and in the case of the University of La Laguna, a program was launched during the 2021-22 academic year. Course for Nursing and Medical Students on the emotional aspects of healthcare.

“It’s an area where communication is crucial because we’re working with sick people who are suffering. And so are their families and the healthcare workers themselves, who aren’t made of stone and, in many of these situations, we suffer, we get angry, we get nervous, we get confused… In short, things happen to us, and we should learn strategies that allow us to manage these situations without harming ourselves or others. And that isn’t always covered in the curriculum extensively enough.”.

In order to carry out the course, the agreement had to be expanded with an addendum that allowed its director to be a member of the board of trustees, Lubelza Roca, a psychiatrist and lecturer in the Master's Program in Palliative Care at the University of Barcelona and in continuing education courses for healthcare and social work professionals. The coordinator from the University of La Laguna was... Mercedes Arias Hernández, from the Nursing Section. A few weeks ago, the results of this first edition were evaluated and were very positive from both the teaching staff and the students, so it was decided to continue it.

This emotional aspect of healthcare professions has always been a concern for Rosa Morell, as she has consistently made clear in her speeches when she visits the University of La Laguna to personally present scholarship recipients with their credentials. She often gives a short address emphasizing these issues, and on occasion, she has even given scholarship recipients books such as José Luis Sampedro's "The Etruscan Smile" to inspire them with some reading material.

“We cannot deny that this sensitivity exists; leaving professionals to their own devices, trusting that their common sense, knowledge, or personal maturity would allow them to handle these delicate situations without further intervention, seemed to all members of the board, for many years now, to be very risky, because it jeopardized comprehensive patient care.” As the president recalls, this situation was exacerbated by the Covid-19 pandemic, which, as is well known, placed immense stress on healthcare personnel.

With the creation of this course, the link between the Pizarroso Foundation and the University of La Laguna not only extends over time, but also has a very strong prospect of continuity. The academic institution has been aware of the importance of this relationship from the outset and, for this reason, granted it its Institutional Patronage Award. Another year

In 2017, Morell received an award from the then acting rector, Francisco Almeida.

Later, a public event recognition for which it was edited a video which reviewed the foundation's history and included testimonials from, among others, former scholarship recipients of the Tenerife center. And in 2017 there was another ceremony to commemorate the first ten years of awarding these scholarships.

For her part, Rosa Morell points out that the foundation's gratitude to the academic institution is immense. “Although I say it every year when I go to Tenerife, it's not just a formality. Despite the distance, we have felt that the University of La Laguna has done an extraordinary and supportive job for the foundation. If so many scholarships have been awarded for so many years, it's because the university is making it happen: from the publicity they do to the award ceremony, which continued even during the lockdown, when there were scholarship presentations that I couldn't attend for safety reasons. That moves the entire board of trustees deeply.”.

Communications Office