Juan Cruzado Rios established the Fundación Juan Cruzado-Vértice Salud (English: Juan Cruzado-Vertice Health Foundation) in 2000 after the personal experience of losing his mother to Alzheimer’s. Through the Foundation, Juan Cruzado Rios aims to provide comprehensive care to older people, their families, and caregivers in Malaga, Spain – to ensure that anyone who needs support to live with meaning and dignity go without the care they deserve.
The Foundation has two flagship programmes:
- ‘Activa-Te’, a programme designed to encourage older people to stay active and independent through evidence-based activities provided through day cares. Activa-Te now has more than 15,000 beneficiaries through over 50 activities delivered through these day cares
- ‘Caregivers-10’, a national level programme that provides online support to family and professional caregivers through conferences, video support, and webinars delivered by professionals from relevant areas of work such as nursing, physiotherapy, psychology, and occupational therapy
However, what sets apart Juan Cruzado Rios’ work with the Foundation is the strong focus on forging collaborative synergies across public institutions and large private businesses to improve the lives of older people, their families, and communities. For example, the Foundation works with small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) who wish to give back to the community through corporate social responsibility initiatives to provide essential services to older people who lack financial resources. In doing so, Juan Cruzado Rios connects older people’s needs with SMEs who may have the resources to generate transformative change but not necessarily the in-house expertise to find the best way to create impact.
Juan Cruzado Rios’ leadership shows us how innovation across sectoral boundaries can amplify the positive impacts we can have on older people’s lives – exactly the type of catalytic collaboration that is required to achieve the vision of the UN Decade of Healthy Ageing.