Relations Network 

A meeting point

In addition to the ONCE itself, as founding entity, the principal organizations for disabled people are present in the ONCE Foundation, through its maximum governing body, the Board of Trustees. Some of these organizations are:

• COCEMFE (Confederación Coordinadora Estatal de Minusválidos Físicos de España - National Coordination Confederation for Physically Disabled People in Spain).
• FEAPS (Confederación Española de Organizaciones a Favor de las Personas con Discapacidad Intelectual - Spanish Confederation of Organizations in Favour of People with Intellectual Disability).
• CNSE (Confederación Estatal de Personas Sordas - National Confederation of Deaf People).
• FIAPAS (Confederación Española de Padres y Amigos de los Sordos - Spanish Confederation of Parents and Friends of Deaf People).
• FEAFES (Confederación Española de Agrupaciones de Familiares y Personas con Enfermedad Mental - )
• ASPACE (Confederación Española de Federaciones y Asociaciones de Atención a las Personas con Parálisis Cerebral y Afines)

The Board of Trustees of the ONCE Foundation also includes CERMI (Comité Español de Representantes de las Personas con Discapacidad – The Spanish Committee of Representatives of People with Disability), a platform which unites the principal organizations for disabled people in Spain, many of them specific to one autonomous community, bringing together more than 3,000 associations and entities, which represent the 3.8 million people with disabilities and their families that exist in Spain. Likewise, two representatives of the State Administration are discretionally appointed members.

The Foundation is configured as a platform which draws together the disability sector; therefore the ONCE Foundation represents, in an increasingly active way, an example of the attitude, character and efforts of a civil society articulated around its representative organizations and which does not hold back when striving to improve the living conditions of specific collectives and of society in general.

The ONCE Foundation’s principal source of financing is the income generated by commercialisation of the lottery ticket, 3% of the gross income; this figure represents, practically, one of every three euros that the ONCE dedicates to social services, around 80 million euros. The efforts of the ONCE Foundation must not obscure the fact that there is a long way to go to achieve full recognition and exercise of the rights of people with disabilities under equal conditions and opportunities as the rest of Spanish citizens. Achieving this full integration is the responsibility of the whole of society. In this spirit of joint responsibility, the ONCE Foundation collaborates in programmes co-financed by European funds, specifically participating, during 2000-2006 in the management of the Operational Programme “Fight against Discrimination”, co-financed by the European Social Fund, ESF and the European Regional Development Fund ERDF.

Since 1988, the ONCE Foundation has dedicated more than 1,000 million euros to programmes and actions in favour of people with disabilities, in fields such as training and labour insertion, universal accessibility – the elimination of barriers of all types – and cooperation with public and private entities with similar interests, collaborating with public authorities in the fulfilment of the obligations and specific duties established by the Constitution and by law.