NEWS STORY. 10/09/2022
The organisation’s projects have had an impact on over 1.2 million people.
The Real Madrid Foundation, the corporate social arm of Real Madrid C.F., is celebrating its 25th anniversary. With over 900 programs, projects and activities every season, it focuses its efforts around social sports activities based on education in values using sport as a vehicle for social intervention.
The Foundation’s primary program lines look at childhood education, especially for children at risk of exclusion, developmental cooperation and the promotion of inclusive sporting practice, contributing to improving the lives of those most in need. Since its inception, it has aided over 1,230,000 vulnerable girls, boys, young people and adults through its projects and schools in more than 100 countries, as well as training over 10,000 sporting coaches and educators.
Education and training for a better future
Today, there are currently 43 schools for young people being run in Spain and over 300 in another 70 countries. The foreign schools complement sporting activity and an education in values with nutritional support, healthcare and extra schooling, adapting to the needs of various groups. There are more than 41,000 young people currently benefitting from the international schools and over 27,000 in the sporting education programs, campus or clinic initiatives in a further 22 countries.
These projects, both the permanent and temporary ones, are run with the help of international partners who implement the activities, the collaboration of patrons and sponsors and the thousands of madridistas who support the Foundation’s initiatives and events every season.
As part of its work, the Foundation develops training materials in line with the unique and pioneering philosophy, For a REAL education, values and sport. Thousands of sports coaches and educators are trained in the methodology every year using state-of-the-art eLearning tools including the OTT Sport Values Academy TV as well as courses, conferences and face-to-face and online workshops.
Sport and values
The adapted sports projects for people with disabilities first came to fruition in 2009 with the Inclusive Basketball Campus and the adapted school in Majadahonda. Right now, there are some 24 projects in Spain and 3 international ones (Cambodia, Colombia and Morocco), aiding over 722 beneficiaries in this area with pioneering programs including football for young people with autism or wheelchair basketball for young people with physical and mental disabilities.
Youths most in need, those living in shelters or internment centres, also have access to social sports projects on a weekly basis which impact over 1,000 people in Spain per year. Activities in correctional facilities were inaugurated in the 2003/04 season and over 2,000 inmates now take part in these. Other groups at risk of exclusion including the elderly, the unemployed or the homeless, find, in the Foundation, a way to improve their lives or their current circumstances, as is the case with the basketball program in hospitals, with over 2,000 beneficiaries every week, or the physical activity for the elderly program which has seen over 5,000 participants over the last 25 years.
Commitment to solidarity
Over the last decade, the Real Madrid Foundation has become the largest private organisation in the world providing comprehensive education through sport. It has also been on the front line of solidarity through cooperation and significant contributions in emergencies including the campaign during the COVID-19 pandemic or its efforts in light of the invasion of Ukraine, among many others.
