President Joan Laporta and the women’s football team welcome Joyce, the new FC Barcelona Foundation robot

President Joan Laporta and the women’s football team welcome Joyce, the new FC Barcelona Foundation robot

Meeting at Ciutat Esportiva between president, members of the women’s team and this new virtual robot with which young people in need can visit Barça in first person

The president of FC Barcelona and the Foundation, Joan Laporta, has welcomed a new member of the squad, Robot Joyce, at an event in the Estadi Johan Cruyff, in the company of the mother of Joyce, a girl who was sick and passed away just weeks after participating in an experience to meet the Barça first team players. 

Robot Joyce will be helping children in hospital or people in vulnerable situations who are unable to come in person to the FC Barcelona facilities to enjoy the Barça experience. The aim of the programme is to foster emotional well-being among children on the basis of exciting, positive experiences through direct interaction with members of the Barça women’s team.

The FC Barcelona Foundation’s Robots programme uses robots with audio and video connections to create a Barça experience. Until now Robot Pol, who lives in the Barça Museum, has been taking children on museum and stadium tours in the company of Foundation volunteers. Now Robot Joyce will be helping beneficiaries of different Foundation projects to interact with the women’s team and explore the Ciutat Esportiva Joan Gamper. 

Robot Joyce also helps to extend the robot programme to other beneficiaries, such as female inmates at the Brians 1 Penitentiary Centre, refugees camps, children at risk in other parts of Catalonia and other socially vulnerable communities. On one occasion, four inmates who are also involved in the FC Barcelona Foundation’s project at that centre were able to follow a women’s team training session and interact with the players by means of the robot.  

Pol and Joyce

Robot Pol was launched in 2017 when the Awabot company supplied the first remote-controlled device, which was named Pol after the first child who benefited from the idea. Pol, who was in hospital with a very serious illness, was able to visit the Camp Nou and Museum, although he sadly died a few months alter. Hence the name Pol was given to a robot that has since guided over 300 children from the paediatric wards at Sant Pau, Sant Joan de Déu, Hospital HM nens de Barcelona, Hospital Vall d’Hebron, Hospital Tries i Pujol i Hospital and Parc Taulí.

Pol now has a companion, Joyce, who takes the name of a girl who took part in the activity on 19 February 2019 in the build-up to the game with Olympique Lyon in the round of 16 of the UEFA Women’s Champions League. The 13-year-old was able to interact with the players that day, but a few months later she lost her battle with the illness she was suffering. 

We would like to thank the families of Pol and Joyce for allowing us pay this small tribute to their children by naming the robots after them, which the FC Barcelona Foundation hopes will bring joy, hope and emotional well-being to plenty more boys and girls in the coming years.