MADRID, 18 Ene. (EUROPA PRESS) –
The Spanish Paralympic Committee (CPE), together with the DISA Foundation and the University of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria (ULPGC), has carried out this Wednesday a new impulse to the sport of people with disabilities in the Canary Islands by renewing the Paralympic Relay and Includes-T, according to a statement.
The act of renewal of these two programs, with which it is intended to “increase the number of people with disabilities who practice sports in all the Canary Islands”, was attended by the rector of the University of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Lluís Serra; the director of the DISA Foundation, Sara Mateos, and the person in charge of the Paralympic Relay at the CPE, Iván Vivaracho.
During the presentation of the programs, Serra assured that practicing sports implies social cohesion and, above all, transmits and enables the practice of certain values ”so necessary today in society”. “We are very fortunate because of what we learn from groups such as those that the CPE brings together, they are that example of effort and resilience without complexes,” he stressed.
For their part, the DISA Foundation valued the “constant” work they do with Paralympic sport through different collaborations and their own projects. “The most important thing about these projects is that they give the opportunity, mainly to children with disabilities, to practice and learn about the existing options in common settings such as schools and clubs,” said Mateos.
Finally, Vivaracho stated that the Canary Islands “take a very important step in terms of the use of innovative tools at the service of equal opportunities. “It is at the forefront with respect to the rest of the CCAA, since it is one of the first to implement both programs and the synergies derived from them. For example, teacher training ends up bringing students with disabilities closer to sports and this will lead to interest in signing up for an activity, obtaining a federation license, etc. “he explained.
The Paralympic Relay project in the Canary Islands was born in April 2021 promoted by the DISA Foundation and hand in hand with the CPE, with the aim of “increasing the number of people who practice sports among people with disabilities, joining sports clubs, whether for people with disability or with an inclusive model”.
According to the CPE statement, approximately 300 people with disabilities have participated in the actions carried out, almost a hundred have shown interest in starting out in Paralympic sport and twenty new federation licenses have been registered thanks to the Paralympic Relay.
This project is carried out in collaboration with the Canary Islands Federation of Sports for People with Disabilities (FCDPD), with the Olympic federations that have already transferred sports for people with disabilities and with the support of CERMI of the Canary Islands.
As for the Include-T Canarias project, it is an important initiative to ensure that the physical education teachers of the Islands have the most appropriate training to teach this subject to students with disabilities and “continue advancing in this way in the equality of opportunities in the school environment.
Thus, it has the “essential” contribution of the University of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, which, together with the DISA Foundation and the CPE, has already trained a total of 207 physical education teachers from the Canary Islands. “With the current relaunch of the program, six training actions are expected to be carried out, two of them in Gran Canaria, another two in Tenerife, one in La Gomera and another in Lanzarote,” the statement concluded.