Infanta Sofía delivered her first official speech on Wednesday as she presented grants from the Ibercaja Foundation.
In the presence of King Felipe, Queen Letizia, and Princess Leonor, the Spanish royal presented ‘Leading Teachers’ grants to five educators at the Monastery of Our Lady of Cogullada. These teachers were being recognised, according to the Spanish Royal House, for “excellence in educational leadership, sustainability, inclusion, educational research and comprehensive health education.”
Infanta Sofía was honorary president of the Leading Teachers grants, and met with finalists as they described their educational projects. Each teacher was required to create an educational programme around the theme of ‘Create Your Own Constellation’
She later, with Princess Leonor, attended workshops about health education, sustainability, and creativity.
In the afternoon, joined by her parents, Infanta Sofía presented the five grants to Cristian Ruiz Reinales (Educational Leadership); Belén María Mesas Sánchez (Sustainability in Eudcation); Clement Córdoba Vila (Inclusive Education); Mercedes Carpintero Gómez (Educational Research and Knowledge Transfer); and Diego Olivar Aldudo (Comprehensive Health Education).
It was here that Infanta Sofía delivered her first official speech. She praised the role of teachers and the importance of education, saying: “We are here today because we care about education. And I want to tell you that when I started reading and reading and reading about what education means, with all its facets, I realized how vast it is and the enormous complexity it contains.”
She added: “[In] every center, in every school, there is a teacher, often exhausted, who, despite the difficulties, continues trying to reach our hearts and minds, one by one, student by student. In every classroom—urban, rural, with newly graduated teachers, with veterans, in schools with different types of ownership: public, charter, private—in every school there is a teacher who defends that sacred time of learning where, calmly if possible, they help us understand the world and develop our own criteria about reality, to create our own hopeful and enthusiastic perspective.”
Infanta Sofía’s speech can be read here in full.
