Athletic Foundation Activities

After the Board’s Annual Meeting and to close the 2015 financial year, the Athletic Club Foundation has made an evaluation of all the activities and programs carried out throughout the last twelve months, as well as take note on the projects it intends to work on in the coming financial year in the social, sports and cultural domains.

In relation to the social field, the Foundation works with groups at risk of social exclusion, in collaboration with third parties such as associations, NGOs and public institutions. The stimulate projects aimed at these groups in 2015, and that will have continuity in the following fiscal year are:

– Children with intellectual disabilities: In collaboration with the Down Syndrome Foundation, Gorabide and Bilbao Kirolak Associations, the Ahalegina Project has been carried out yet another year, aimed at helping the educational process and empowerment of this group through soccer and sport.
– Adult with intellectual disabilities: Along with the Biscayan Federation of Adapted Sports and several Biscayan associations, the Liga and Basque Adapted Football Cup for People with Intellectual Disabilities have been developed. The primary target is to help assure the right of this group to participative leisure and recreation, as well as to collaborate in the process of full socialization.
– The homeless : In collaboration with the association Bizitegi (previously with the RAIS Foundation) and Bilbao Kirolak, the Foundation supports a football team for homeless people, whose objective is to aid in this group’s process of social inclusion, in addition to assuring their right to participative leisure and recreation.
– Children and youngsters at risk of social exclusion in the area of Bilbao La Vieja: In collaboration with Bakuva Association and Bilbao Kirolak, the Foundation supports five football teams that compete in federated and scholastic competitions, but whose primary target is to collaborate in the educational process of young people at risk of social exclusion.
– Persons deprived of their liberty or on probation: Along with the Foundation ADSIS, the Foundation develops a program that uses sports and football in particular as essential elements in this group’s social reintegration process.
– Persons with mental illness: The Foundation collaborates with Osakidetza’s Mental Health Network in its effort with this particular group, through a program that uses football to aid in the therapeutic process.
Similarly, in 2015 the Foundation has implemented other social projects and programs such as:
– Support service in San Mamés for people with reduced mobility, under way through the Foundation’s volunteer program. In 2016 several people with intellectual disabilities will be integrated in the team of volunteers, thanks to the collaboration of Gorabide.
– Toy donation campaign for impoverished families, along with the Red Cross, at Christmas time.
– Campaign promoting blood donation, with the motto ‘Dona tu sangre de león’ (Donate your Lion Blood), in collaboration with Osakidetza.
– Invitation to San Mamés Stadium for children in conjunction with the Paediatric and Home Care Service of Cruces Hospital and the ‘Pequeño Deseo’ Foundation (Small Wish Foundation), among others.

The Foundation has also worked in the social/sporting realm with the FutbolKalean project which in 2015 has reached approximately twenty Biscayan municipalities and within the cultural domain with projects such as:
– Literature and Football, with the sixth edition of the Literature and Football festival, which included two free-distribution comic issues and the promotional initiative ‘Athletic Club de Lectura’.
– Euskara (Basque Language) Promotional Campaigns in collaboration with Korrika, Ibilaldia and Topagunea.
– Student scholarships/grants for players no longer a part of Lezama but that in recent years have maintained significant performance in their studies.
– BertsoDerbia, bertsolaris derby (Basque improvised poetry) with particular football world theme coinciding with the Athletic Club-Real Sociedad derby.
– Thinking Football Film Festival, third edition of the football film festival with a social dimension.
Finally, the Foundation is working towards the foreseeable launch of new projects in 2016 such as:

– Collaboration with Biscayan hospitals through the donation on the part of the Athletic Club Foundation of reinforcement material for paediatric and neonatal treatments and the customization and decoration with Athletic themes of rooms at Cruces Hospital.
– Collaboration with CEAR in an activity destined toward the social inclusion of political refugees.
– External Project: The Foundation is working in defining its own important external project. Currently, two projects are being considered in conjunction with NGOs, one in Peru and another in Honduras.