Pirilampo Mágico 2023 campaign: "openness, future and plain joy"

"Universidade Católica welcomes you with great pleasure and I hope that this opening session is just that: openness, future and plain joy." It was with these words that the Vice-Rector of Universidade Católica, José Manuel Pereira de Almeida, received the Pirilampo Magico 2023 Campaign, launched on 12 May, at the headquarters of Universidade Católica, in Lisboa.

The campaign that aims "to promote the rights of about 25 thousand people with disabilities" was created in 1986 by the National Federation of Social Solidarity Cooperatives (FENACERCI) and has the pirilampo (firefly) as its symbol. Hope green is the colour chosen for this year's edition, under the slogan "the energy that lights up the dream". And for Joaquim Pequicho, Executive Director of FENACERCI, the campaign "is really the realisation of a dream, in which everyone contributed to make it come true."

Julieta Sanches, President of the Board of Directors of the federation also present at the session thanked "the Universidade Católica Portuguesa, which welcomes us with open arms, in this magnificent space where the learned and the explored knowledges meet."

For Ana Mendes Godinho, Minister for Labour, Solidarity and Social Security, "the Pirilampo is energy that we share with each other and that ensures that we have a society that is increasingly able to respond to those most in need." The minister also stressed that "giving energy to the pirilampo is giving energy to those who need it most."

The President of the Republic, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, meanwhile, praised the work that has been developed by FENACERCI and the fact that the campaign represents "a pole of mobilisation around a cause that started by being forgotten: the cause of young people and children raised by CERCIs throughout the country."

Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa also stressed the importance of the presence of the "students of the Universidade Católica Portuguesa and the rest of the academic community" at the session as they "have an openness that should be contagious to all others towards social dramas and deprivation."

For the President, supporting this campaign "is more than a voluntary gesture, it is an affirmation of commitment to the future".

Mariana Lino, Coordinator of Social Responsibility and Local Impact of Pingo Doce, João Bento, Chairman of the Executive Committee of CTT Portugal, Pedro Leitão, Chairman of the Executive Committee of Banco Montepio, and Hugo Figueiredo, Director of the Board of Directors of RTP were also present at the session, which counted with the High Patronage of the Presidency of the Republic.