Teresa Roca Formosa

The married couple Teresa Roca Formosa and Josep Maria Vilaseca founded Fundació Jaume Bofill.

Josep Maria Vilaseca was a lawyer of great prestige. Taking a competitive examination to become a state lawyer, he won the position but later requested a leave of absence because he preferred to devote himself to private law. He was considered an expert on the legal treatment of charitable foundations and was an adviser to many such entities in the process of their organisation. Likewise, he drafted the law on foundations that the Government of Catalonia was to approve several years later. Josep Maria Vilaseca was also highly respected in this field in Madrid, and he and Francisco Guijarro Arrizabalaga, director of the Telefónica Foundation, founded the charitable entities association FOEBE. Later they organised meetings of foundations at the Buitrago Satellite Station, which Josep Maria Vilaseca himself and Jordi Porta attended as members of Fundació Jaume Bofill. Those meetings gave rise to the creation of the Foundations Centre and to the promotion of the Catalan Foundations Coordinating Entity.

The Roca-Vilaseca couple’s activity in the service of Catalan society had other aspects as well. They helped President Josep Tarradellas to preserve the archive of the Republican Government of Catalonia which he kept in Saint-Martin-le-Beau (France). Once the Catalan government had been recovered, Josep Maria Vilaseca became the head of the Legal Advisory Committee of the Government of Catalonia and the first director of the Institute of Self-Government Studies.

Teresa Roca’s and Josep Maria Vilaseca’s generosity was likewise of fundamental aid in the publishing sector (especially for the publishers Editorial Laia, Editorial Estela, Edicions 62 and others). They also helped the publishing house Edicions Catalanes de París with its “clandestine” publications under the Franco regime.

Just as Josep Maria Vilaseca placed his professional capacities in the service of Catalonia, Teresa Roca took advantage of her participation in the Roca Radiator Company to make a number of interesting projects a reality. Indeed, Teresa had a great social sensitivity and a special concern for the people who were most in need of help. She also made her Can Bordoi estate available for different activities and let the Boy Scout movement install itself in the Castell Vell or Old Castle of that property.

The couple’s generosity was inspired by their social sensitivity and their solidarity, on the one hand, and by their Christian ideals, on the other.

Teresa Roca Formosa and Josep Maria Vilaseca were awarded the Creu de Sant Jordi (St George Cross), one of the highest civil distinctions in Catalonia, in 2009 and 1983, respectively. Teresa Roca Formosa passed away on 11 April 2016.

“Our means were more than sufficient to cover our needs and we were concerned about the funds that we weren’t using. We felt that those funds didn’t belong to us. They had to be used to cover shortages. It was our way of balancing social justice a little. After giving it some thought, we decided to organise a foundation and that was the origin of Fundació Jaume Bofill.”

Teresa Roca Formosa

For further information: https://fundaciobofill.cat/en/history