Ghanaian Wins the prestigious King of Spain Award

Founder of the Non-Governmental Organisation ‘NASCO Feeding Minds’, Ousman Umar, a resident of Valldoreix, has won the Princesa de Girona Social Foundation Award 2021. The award was announced this Thursday in a virtual event that focused on social entrepreneurship and educational transformation.

Precisely the entity founded by Umar is dedicated to “uniting education, technology and alliances” to “provide solutions to the migratory phenomenon”, as detailed by the jury of the award. Umar was born in Ghana and when he reached the age of 13 he migrated to Europe in search of a better future. It took four years to cross the Sahara on foot and the sea in a boat to reach Spain.

In 2012 he founded the NGO NASCO Feeding Minds with his brother Banasco Seidu Nuhu who is the Executive Director of the project in Ghana to change the paradigm of humanitarian aid.

The NGO seeks to offer solutions to the problem of immigration to the country of origin through training in new technologies in society to get out of poverty. The jury described Umar’s career as “exemplary” for “his resilience, his ability to overcome and take advantage of opportunities.”

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The NGO is operational in the Sawla-Tuna-Kalba district in the Savannah Region. Its goal is to “prevent” children from “becoming the immigrants of the future” for “lack of opportunities.” That is why it is committed to education as a “tool to change any society”.

The jury was chaired by the Deputy General Director of the “La Caixa” Banking Foundation and member of the FPdGi Advisory Board, Elisa Durán and also made up of the head of the surgical section of Gynecology in Women’s Health Dexeus, Pere Barri (Social Award 2011) – who has served as secretary-; the pedagogue and social entrepreneur, Roser Batlle; the former president of UNICEF Spain, Consuelo Crespo; the former president of the Spanish Association Against Cancer (AECC) and its Scientific Foundation, Isabel Oriol Díaz de Bustamante; the director of the Impact Hub Madrid, Antonio González; the general secretary of Caritas, Natalia Peiro; the CEO of Generation Spain, Mercedes Valcárcel and the director of branding and communication strategy of the Spanish Red Cross, Belén Viloria.

By Lovelace Akosua