The Island Council and the ULL Train About 50 Technicians in Inclusive Sports Practices

The Tenerife Island Council, in collaboration with the University of La Laguna (ULL), has trained about fifty coaches in inclusive sports practices through the Physical Activity and Sports Plan for Social Inclusion (PADIS). The island’s Councilor for Sports, Concepción Rivero, along with the associate dean of the University of La Laguna’s School of Education, Miguel Fernández, and the island director, Ángel Luis Pérez, the diplomas to the professionals who participated in this training program designed by the General Foundation of the University of La Laguna.

Rivero highlighted “the Cabildo’s commitment to bringing about a gradual transformation in how inclusion is understood in the context of physical activity and sports, with the aim of advancing the normalization of universal participation in sports without allowing personal circumstances to serve as a barrier.”

The Sports Minister referred to the four fundamental pillars on which PADIS is based, “namely, sports activities held outside the centers that are part of the project, others that take place at those same centers with people with severe disabilities; the conduct of a study on disability in each municipality to serve as the basis for designing adapted and inclusive municipal sports programs; and the development of a training program like this one to help coaches update their skills.”

The associate dean of the ULL’s School of Education and director of the PADIS training program explained that this first course demonstrates that universality in sports is possible, but that it is a process that requires continued work on a physicaland sports activities that is accessible to everyone under conditions of inclusion. A program that reaches more municipalities across the island with each new edition

The training program, which was conducted over nearly two months in both online and in-person formats, covered a range of topics related to addressing diversity in sports, various methodological strategies, and interventions in physical activities and social inclusion for people with intellectual, sensory (visual and hearing), and motor disabilities, as well as those with mental health disorders, among others, and was supplemented by practical workshops throughout the program.

The Physical Activity-Sports Plan for Social Inclusion, promoted by the Island Council through the public company Ideco, has enabled 1,219 people with disabilities to participate in physical activity through one of the 116 activities held during this campaign, which involved 48 centers across the island.