MADRID, 7 Mar. (EUROPA PRESS) –
The third edition of the program ‘Girls, sport makes us powerful!’, which aims to combat the abandonment of physical activity and sport among girls and young people between 12 and 24 years old, started this Monday with its presentation at the Gallur Municipal Sports Center, in which the deputy mayor of Madrid, Begoña Villacís, participated; the Sports delegate, Sofía Miranda; and the head of Global Sponsorships at Iberdrola, Elisa Yarte.
In this first meeting, almost two hundred students from different schools in the Latina district shared a talk with the athletes Belén Toimil, double champion of Spain and national shot put record; Loida Zabala, Paralympic adapted weightlifting athlete; María López, international field hockey player, and Stefy Navarro, Parkour world champion in 2019.
Villacís encouraged the girls and adolescents to practice some type of sports activity on a daily basis. “Sport is a super effective tool to test yourself and see where you are able to take your body and yourself,” she said. “We need strong women, women who fight for everything in life, who make you respect and believe in yourself, because that will make you powerful,” she added.
The Sports delegate, Sofía Miranda, recalled the importance of the media to make women’s sports visible. “It’s not that we don’t have female role models in sports, yes there are, but sometimes they are not visible in sports programs on television,” she said, insisting on the need to “incorporate” into our day-to-day “sport and healthy living habits. “This principle will accompany us for the rest of our lives,” she stressed.
For her part, the head of Iberdrola, a company collaborating with the City Council in this initiative, Elisa Yarte, explained that with the program they hope to “contribute to raising awareness among girls, young people and their families about the importance of maintaining links with sport as that grow”. “It is a commitment to the creation of new references such as the athletes who are with us today and who we hope will inspire girls and boys and the whole of society in general,” she said.
The program, framed in the activities of the city of Madrid as World Capital of Sport 2022, will reach all the districts of Madrid, in a commitment of the Delegated Area of Sport to “transmit to girls the values inherent in sport, but also of empower them, as a source of self-esteem, security and freedom”.
The event was also attended by the delegate for Families, Equality and Social Welfare, Pepe Aniorte; the councilor for the districts of Villaverde and Villa de Vallecas, Concha Chapa; the councilman of Hortaleza and Latina, Alberto Serrano; and the spokeswoman for Sport of the socialist municipal group, Natalia Cera, among others.