By Michele Raviart

“Benevolence means contributing to the growth of the person in his humanity”, stated Joaquìn Navarro-Valls, the historic spokesman of Pope Saint John Paul II who served as director of the Holy See Press Office from 1984 to 2006.

This compassionate disposition towards others combined with a managerial position was a quality of the late Spanish doctor and journalist, to whom the “Joaquìn Navarro-Valls International Award for Leadership and Benevolence” has been dedicated.

The award was established in 2023 by the Biomedical University Foundation, a non-profit organization supporting the Campus Bio-Medico University of Rome and the Campus Bio-Medico University Hospital Foundation which Navarro-Valls himself helped to establish in 2015. It is awarded to “eminent  personalities” with the aim “of promoting models that contribute to the improvement of society through solidarity and benevolence for a more responsible, sustainable and inclusive world”. Furthermore, the objective of the initiative is also the creation of ten scholarships for the most deserving students of the Bio Medico Campus. The second edition of the award took place on Monday 8 July in the in the Statuary Hall of the Capitoline Hill, the seat of seat of Rome’s administration.

The winners

The winner for the senior category this year was  Lina Tombolato Doris, who in 2022 created the Ennio Doris Foundation in memory of her husband, founder of the Mediolanum bank who had passed away the previous year.

According to Biomedical University Foundation, Ms. Tombolato Doris has promoted “several projects in favour of underprivileged children, scholarships for university and technical training provided to young people from disadvantaged backgrounds, as well as activities to support families and the elderly  with the desire to accompany people in need.”

30-year-old Nicolò Govoni, president and founder of the NGO “Still I Rise” was the winner of the award for the junior category. Govoni created his association in 2018 on the island of Samos in Greece to address the educational emergency of migrant and vulnerable children. Still I Rise now also operates in Syria, Kenya, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Yemen, Colombia and India and has taken care of the education of approximately 20 thousand children. “Nominated for the 2020 Nobel Peace Prize, Nicolò Govoni has showed  generosity and human consistency over time in his commitment to the issues of education and support for children and adolescents in vulnerable situations”, said the Biomedical University Foundation

Remembering the “Portavoz”

During the ceremony some personalities shared their memories of Mr. Navarro-Valls, who passed away on 5 July 2017. According to Valentina Alazraki, the dean of the Vatican press corps, Mr. Navarro-Valls was “El Portavoz” (spokesman, ed.)  par excellence. He shared with the Pope the same idea of ​​institutional communication and a professionalism and leadership united with humanity, she added, recalling Navarro-Valls’ emotion in front of his colleagues in the Press Office a few hours before the death of St. John Paul II, she said.

Gisotti: Navarro-Valls taught us how much information matters for the Church

It is not surprising that the journalists’ room at the Holy See Press Office has been named after Navarro-Valls himself since 2019, noted Alessandro Gisotti, deputy director of the Dicastery for Communication and in 2019 director of the Press Room.Along with his his successor Father Federico Lombardi, Sj -, he said, he taught us that information is also important for the Church and the Holy See, that there are no good or bad questions, but only interesting and not interesting questions, and the importance of cordiality with all colleagues, in which different roles never becomes distance.