- The Renueva Scholarships, a winning project in the 2025 Social Value Awards, will help cover their living expenses while they train and prepare for their future careers
Fundación Moeve has wrapped up its visits to the organizations that received a 2025 Social Value Award, with the winning projects now more than halfway through. Its final visit was to CEAR Canarias (the Spanish Commission for Refugee Aid), where representatives saw how the Renueva Scholarships are progressing. The initiative gives five young people formerly in care the chance to train for careers in a growing field linked to the energy transition.
The five participants supported by CEAR Canarias come from Mali, The Gambia, Senegal and Morocco. Funding from the Social Value Awards will help cover their housing, food and other basic living expenses, allowing them to focus on earning a Professional Certificate in the Installation and Maintenance of Solar Thermal Systems. The course, offered by Instituto Focan, is designed for people who are currently unemployed.
Running from August to December, the program includes 475 hours of classroom instruction and 145 hours of practical training. On completion, the participants will have a professional qualification in a field that is playing an important role in the energy transition and offers growing job opportunities.
Belén Machado, head of fundación Moeve in the Canary Islands, and Jesús Méndez, a Moeve employee and volunteer ambassador for the project, visited CEAR Canarias’s facilities in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria. They were welcomed by the organization’s regional coordinator, Juan Carlos Lorenzo, along with two staff members from its Employment and Training team and its Marketing and Corporate Partnerships team. During the visit, they learned more about CEAR Canarias’s work, discussed the project’s progress and attended one of the participants’ classes at Instituto Focan.
Machado described the program as “an initiative whose impact goes far beyond the number of people taking part. Five may seem like a small number at first, but what really matters is that this project has the power to change lives. With CEAR’s ongoing support, and by making the most of this opportunity, these five young people can build promising careers in a sector with enormous employment potential.”
“Thanks to these scholarships, they can focus on their training without worrying about paying the rent, buying food or covering other basic day-to-day expenses,” she added. “That peace of mind is essential if they are to put all their energy into preparing for their future.”
Lorenzo also highlighted the importance of fundación Moeve’s support through the Social Value Awards. “For young people who have faced particularly difficult circumstances, an opportunity like this is about much more than taking a course. It gives them practical tools to build a future with greater independence and more choices,” he said. “The scholarship removes the financial barrier and allows them to focus on their training over these months. The combination of professional qualifications, ongoing support and hands-on experience can make a real difference when they enter the job market.”
Lorenzo also praised the work the five participants put in before the certificate program had even begun. Because no Level 1 certificates in this field were offered in 2026, they had to prepare for and pass a set of core skills assessments before they could enroll directly in the Level 2 program. “They studied together for the entrance assessments, which created a close bond between them. That bond will support them during the training and, most likely, in their lives beyond it,” he added.
About the Social Value Awards
Fundación Moeve’s Social Value Awards were established in 2005 with the goal of supporting organizations working with vulnerable groups in the areas where Moeve operates. In the Canary Islands, these awards have supported 80 social projects to date, with total funding of €862,000.
CEAR Canarias, Cáritas Diocesana de Canarias and the Sonsoles Soriano Foundation were the three organizations recognized in the Canary Islands in the 2025 awards. Together, they received €75,000 to carry out their projects over the course of this year.
Applications for the 2026 Social Value Awards will be accepted from September 1 through 18.
