Seeds for sustainability and social inclusion

Co-operation between different entities is one of the strategic pillars of the work carried out by the Athletic Club Foundation. The objective is to promote initiatives and activities that bring about beneficial effects for all participants and, at the same time, help build a better society.

To celebrate the end of the season with Bakuva Project – an initiative designed to help minors at risk of social exclusion – the Athletic Club Fundazioa organised an activity that allows social inclusion to be combined with sustainability.

With this in mind, around 20 children from the Bakuva Association hiked up Mount Urkiola, taking advantage of the trip to collect seeds for the CO2 Compensation project. This project, developed together with the Lurgaia Foundation, offsets the carbon footprint caused each season by Athletic Club’s travels through the planting of native trees in selected areas of the Urdaibai Biosphere Reserve.

Under the instructions and supervision of experts from Lurgaia and Fundazioa, the children of Bakuva enjoyed a trip to the mountains while learning to how recognise the seeds of two native trees in the area: Sorbus aucuparia (rowan or mountain-ash) and Betula celtiberica (birch tree). The Lurgaia Foundation will then use these seeds to reforest the Urdaibai Biosphere Reserve.

Last April, Ernesto Valverde participated in an activity organised by the Foundation as part of the CO2 Compensation Project. The current Athletic Club coach planted more than 200 trees of seven different native species along with users of the Bestalde Program part of Adsis Foundation (aimed at people deprived of liberty and former prisoners), Osakidetza RSMB Project (where people with mental illnesses are looked after in a comprehensive manner) and Sortarazi Project (a Claretian charity that works for people in Bizkaia who are in a situation of exclusion or at risk of it).