Raise your glass to all the women in the room born in 1930...

Yesterday in the Formentera Day Centre, the Espai Dones association put together with the help of the Formentera Council a moving and festive homage to women born in 1930. Capping off a programme that aimed to celebrate the role of women in society, the Saturday event was last on a long list that began 8 March with the International Day of the Working Woman and a reading of the association's manifesto as commemoration.

The celebration has become a tradition over the last seven years and this year had the distinction of bringing more than a hundred attendees to the Day Centre conference hall, among whom were Council president Jaume Ferrer and councillor of social welfare Dolores Fernández Tamargo. The homage began with a discourse given by Espai Dones president Vanessa Díaz, who thanked the evening's honourees - “born before the Civil War and raised in conditions harder than any of us can imagine today” - for a lifetime of tireless efforts.

Afterwards, different personalities from the island were met with roaring applause as they stood before the crowd and rendered homage to the evening's special guests one by one. The final portion of the gathering was a moment to dance. It was a moment when many of the women being honoured – among them Catalina Escandell Costa, born 23 February 1930 – took to the floor and brought ball pagès to life.

The celebration concluded with hors-d'oeuvres served in the courtyard of the Day Centre, where the honourees and their family members enjoyed refreshments, enveloped in the fading rays of light that had marked the spectacular day.