Sanitas Foundation has donated 300 oak trees to the Madrid Metropolitan Forest as a tribute to the city that hosted the first Inclusive Games last year of history The number of trees delivered to the City Council represents the group of participants who attended this historic event, and will also contribute to offsetting part of the carbon footprint generated during the sporting event.
The trees have been planted in a commemorative act organized this morning by the Sanitas Foundation in collaboration with the Higher Sports Council, the Spanish Olympic Committee and the Spanish Paralympic Committee, all of them promoters of the Inclusive Games, and in which the Madrid City Council has also participated. The oak trees will remain in the Metropolitan Forest in memory of the cause promoted by the Inclusive Games, focused on promoting the practice of sports by people with and without disabilities together.
The initiative to donate trees to the city of Madrid emerged as part of the commitment of Sanitas and its Foundation to the concept of One Health, promoted by the World Health Organization. This commitment refers to the need to take care of the planet’s health in order to take care of people’s health, due to the relationship that exists between the two. For the Foundation, accessibility to sports practice is synonymous with health, and in this sense, protecting the health of the planet through planting trees is one more way of caring for people’s health.
“Sanitas’ commitment is to help people live longer, healthier and happier lives and create a better world, for this reason all the activities we undertake in the company have a strong link with the protection of the health of the planet and the of people,” he explained. Iñaki Peralta, president of the Sanitas Foundation. “One of the main challenges we have is to collaborate in urban regeneration, because green spaces have a positive impact on people’s health. For this reason, we wanted it to be precisely trees that remember that Madrid was the first city in the world to celebrate Inclusive Games. We trust that the practice of inclusive sport will continue to grow in the coming years, just as the trees we have planted will do”, he continued.
“We are grateful for this donation, which will be added to the more than 6,600 trees and almost 40,000 shrub specimens, all of them native species, that citizens can already enjoy in the recently inaugurated plots of the Metropolitan Forest, like the one we are in. This is not it is not an electoral project but a city project for future generations to enjoy”, declared Begoña Villacís, Deputy Mayor of Madrid.
On this occasion the chosen species is the Oak, due to its strength, and will coexist in the area with holm oaks and Kermes oaks. They are also located close to ash, poplar and elm trees. They will be located on small groups of stones so that they retain moisture and have greater survival capacity over an approximate surface of 3,000 m2 in the Aravaca section of the Metropolitan Forest, which has recently opened its doors to the public.
It is estimated that by adulthood, the 300 trees will be able to capture about 11 tons of CO2 year.
In the act, a commemorative plaque of the Inclusive Games has been discovered. “Sport provides well-being, values, improvement, respect for the opponent and teamwork, so the forest could not be oblivious to the fact that, in 2021, Madrid became the city of inclusive sport, a competition in which for the first time in 170 Olympic and Paralympic athletes participated in history under inclusive regulations” continued the Deputy Mayor.
some historical games
The first J’sInclusive games, which took place on October 7, 2021, became the first competition in which Spanish Olympic and Paralympic athletes competed under inclusive regulations. A total of 170 participants competed in nine disciplines: athletics, badminton, wheelchair basketball, judo, swimming, rugby, taekwondo, table tennis and triathlon. This competition was possible thanks to the work of the Sanitas Foundation Chair for Studies on Inclusive Sport, the Higher Sports Council, the Spanish Olympic Committee, the Spanish Paralympic Committee and the national sports and disability federations involved, in charge of adapting said regulations.
“The Inclusive Games have marked a before and after in the world of sports. We have taken another step to achieve a sport without barriers, in which we can all participate with equal conditions. Now we just have to continue working to strengthen this commitment in society as a whole”, he declared.o Yolanda Erburu, General Director of Fundación Sanitas.
Fundación Sanitas worked together with the Higher Sports Council, the Spanish Paralympic Committee and the Spanish Olympic Committee in the organization of these Games. In addition, athletes of the stature of Sara Andrés or Felipe Reyes participated in their different disciplines.
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