The Foundation’s donation will head to Villarreal’s EDI (intellectually disabled teams)
“La Caixa” Foundation will collaborate once more with the Endavant Solidaritat initiative for the 2018/19 season. Including this one, “La Caixa” Foundation has now been involved for three seasons with this Villarreal project, where the EDI teams will receive their help. As part of the agreement, “La Caixa” visited players from EDI times during a training session at the Training Ground (Ciudad Deportiva). The Regional Business Manager, Dino Gosp; Regional Business Director for Vila-real, Enrique Puigmoltó; Vila-real Office Managers, Arsenio Orero, Francisco I. Palomares and Jorge Martínez; Vila-real Region Managerial Secretary, Eulalia Climent; and Regional Consultant, Soraya Casado Cocho.
With a charitable tradition for more than a century, “La Caixa” Foundation was the first private national foundation and is one of the most important foundations in the world, which continues strengthening its ties with the Yellows.
With the firm objective of integrating all Yellows, Villarreal CF founded the EDI project in 2015/16. Currently Villarreal has three EDI teams, formed of intellectually disabled footballers, coming from special centres like La Panderola in Villarreal. The teams serve as a way of recreation, sport and fun, which also helps them identify with defending the club’s colours.
The three EDI teams training three times a week at the Training Ground, and are part of the Yellows Academy structure.
Furthermore, Villarreal have been one of the leading teams behind LaLiga Genuine, which aims to bring closer people with intellectual disabilities and the world of football, hoping to normalise this. The 2018/19 LaLiga Genuine season involves 30 clubs, including Villarreal. The competition began at the Villarreal CF Training Ground in October 2017, with the presence of LaLiga president, Javier Tebas.
Foundation, the soul of “La Caixa”
”La Caixa” Foundation, presided over by Isidro Fainé and ran by Jaume Giró, has increased its budget to 520 million Euros for 2018. This amount puts the organisation as the biggest private foundation in Spain and one of the most important in the world.
The social programmes carried out focus on current challenges in society, such as unemployment, fighting against exclusion or living access. A total of 59% of its budget goes to social programmes, with 23% going towards promoting culture and education and 18% towards investigation and growth.
