Helen Watson, president of Ibiza and Formentera Against Cancer, Olympic walker Marc Tur and the Costa-Escanellas family, founders of Grupo Empresarial Paya, received the Premis Diario de Ibiza last night in an emotional gala at Club Diario attended by more than 160 people who showed all their affection.
The first thing Helen Watson, president of Ibiza and Formentera Against Cancer, did when she arrived at the Club Diario de Ibiza was take out a basket full of pink ribbons from a bag. In a little while she would receive the Diario de Ibiza Award for Social Action. She is accompanied by three volunteers who, in a flash, have put on the association’s red polo shirts. Five minutes later there is hardly anyone in the exhibition hall who is not already wearing a pink ribbon, the symbol of the fight against breast cancer. The scene alone explains the drive, energy and ability to turn what this Englishwoman wants into reality, awarded this year along with the Olympian Marc Tur (Person of the Year) and the family of Grupo Empresarial Paya (Entrepreneurial Initiative).
“Unique people”, as journalist Elena Gregori, the gala’s presenter, will define them in a little while. With just a few minutes to go before the auditorium doors close, she is concentrating on her work. Outside, the photocall is a hive of activity. Greetings, congratulations, reunions, conversations, hugs, handshakes… More than 150 guests passing by, and posing. Among them, the award winners, their families, the authorities, the directors of Prensa Ibérica and Diario de Ibiza and the representatives of the sponsors and collaborators of the awards ceremony: Facsa, the councils of Ibiza and Formentera and the town councils of Santa Eulària, Sant Antoni, Sant Joan and Ibiza, through its Patronato de Música, and the Unión Deportiva Ibiza. Also the new bishop of Ibiza and Formentera, Vicent Ribas Prats, at his first event after being appointed, who received almost as many congratulations as the night’s protagonists.
Marc Tur receives the Diario de Ibiza Award for Person of the Year from the president of the Consell de Ibiza, Vicent Marí. JUAN A. RIERA
The director of Diario de Ibiza, Cristina Martín, highlights the “specialness” of a night “on the road to recovering” the normality in which “kisses and hugs were common” and it was not necessary to “imagine the smiles under the masks”. A speech in which she recalls the “year and a half of fear, despair, uncertainty and pain”, highlights the “model way” in which the health system has withstood the pressure of care and encourages “taking advantage of the slowdown imposed by the pandemic” to “reflect on the limits of growth” in the Pitiusas. Martín addresses each of the winners. To the athlete Marc Tur – “a fourth place in the Olympic Games is a huge medal for us”-, to the family that set up the Grupo Empresarial Paya – “they could see the transformation of tourism and didn’t turn back”- and Helen Watson – “the woman that many health professionals thanked a thousand times in a video”-.
For the full article, please visit Diario de Ibiza website here.