-By Montserrat López
It has been exactly one year since our trip to India. A journey that does not end when you land back home. Its impact still reverberates. It continues.
Exactly one year ago, we ran the Fundación Vicente Ferrer Solidarity Ultramarathon in Anantapur: 45 kilometres divided into four stages, run throughout the night. A race that symbolically connected the distance between the first modest hospital founded by Vicente Ferrer and the large women’s and children’s hospital that today represents prosperity and hope for thousands of people.
But the hardest part was not the distance. Nor the pitch-dark night, the muddy terrain, or the dust clinging to our skin.
What truly overwhelms you — what disarms you — is trying to grasp the real, day-to-day impact of the Foundation’s projects.
That was our true race: giving a voice, kilometre by kilometre, to each village that welcomed us in the darkness with dances, smiles and an affection that transcended any language barrier.
Solidarity you can touch
We experienced solidarity in the form of adobe when visiting homes from the Dignified Housing programme, where the community itself builds houses that are registered in the woman’s name.
We felt it in the schools, where children of different ethnicities, religions and abilities live and learn together, helping one another and sowing a future where hope and solidarity are part of everyday life.
We “touched” it in the selection and delivery of microcredits to projects led by women working towards their autonomy, freeing themselves from constraints and becoming the economic backbone of their families.
More than 55 years have passed since Vicente Ferrer began his work with a clear conviction: “Poverty is a violation of the basic right of every person to live their life in freedom.”
His legacy, now carried forward by Anna Ferrer, Moncho, Visha, Luz and the entire team, has always been about tackling poverty through work, not charity.
Races like this one — where nearly 100 people from Spain joined forces — are an essential amplifier of this work. They shed light on distant realities, but they also illuminate us from within, reminding us of the transformative power of true engagement.
A journey that transforms: beyond corporate volunteering
Experiences like this are deeply transformative. Once back in “our reality”, they remind us that we still have the ability to activate levers that generate positive social impact.
That is why I am a strong advocate of corporate volunteering. Its effect is profoundly transformative — both externally and internally within organisations.
For companies, it is not a one-off action, but a strategic tool that delivers tangible value:
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Strengthens teams: sharing an experience of this intensity creates bonds of trust and complicity that are impossible to build in a boardroom. Resilience, mutual support and collective strength naturally emerge.
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Develops key skills: leadership in challenging contexts, adversity management, adaptability and deep empathy return to the workplace through the people who have lived them.
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Provides purpose and aligns values: it contributes to a meaningful organisational culture, where people feel proud to belong to a company that takes action. It attracts and retains conscious talent.
For individuals, the transformation is internal. It confronts you, humbles you, and fills you with a gratitude that reshapes priorities.
And for communities, foundations and projects, it is oxygen: funding, visibility and, above all, the certainty that they are not alone.
Everyone benefits. Everyone moves forward.
As Vicente Ferrer wisely said: “We will only move forward if we do so collectively.” His vision was always to transform society from the ground up, empowering communities to overcome poverty by themselves — not through miracles, but through coordinated action and solid principles.
This experience was a living proof of that legacy. The bonds that are created — between teammates, between people from different backgrounds, with communities waiting and dancing for the next relay runner even at three in the morning — endure.
They form the fabric of a global network of solidarity that, kilometre by kilometre, project by project, continues to change the world.
The journey ended.
The impact did not.