Cristóbal Colón, founder of La Fageda, dies

BarcelonaThe founder of La Fageda, Cristóbal Colón Palasí, passed away this Thursday at the age of 77, as family sources explained to the ARA. A psychologist by profession, he launched the La Fageda project in 1982 as a rehabilitation tool for people with mental illnesses. Colón Palasí, born in 1949 in Zuera (Zaragoza), held the presidency of La Fageda until March 2024, when he stepped down from his executive duties and was named honorary president.

As Colón explained in October 2025, within the framework of the Personality Recognition award annually granted by the Vallesan business association Cecot, he decided to undertake La Fageda after years of working in psychiatric hospitals. There, he realized the need to create a company outside of these centers that would focus on labor therapy, his specialty. His goal was for people with disabilities to be able to "recover their dignity" through "real work," seeing that in psychiatric hospitals they only did "crafts."

As he explained in his speech, La Fageda was "a project of madmen with sensible adventurers" who had "the sole determination not to return to the asylum." Colón also assured that the success of La Fageda was not reduced to economic profits or market shares, and he called on the business community as a whole to "look beyond the bottom line."

"A benchmark of the social economy in Catalonia"

Currently, La Fageda employs more than 500 people, in a task that brought Colón recognition such as the Creu de Sant Jordi in 2009 or the Lluís Companys Memorial Award from the Josep Irla Foundation in 2010. In June 2024, the University of Girona (UdG) invested him as doctor honoris causa. The rector of the institution stated then that with his person, the university incorporated "emotional intelligence" into the faculty.

The President of the Generalitat, Salvador Illa, echoed the passing with a message on X in which he stated that Colón "demonstrated that inclusion and dignity are also built by creating opportunities". He also considered that the La Fageda project "has transformed many lives and has become a benchmark for the social economy in Catalonia". The head of the Catalan executive has conveyed his condolences to the family, friends, and the entire team of the cooperative.