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The project More than Tennis receives the VI Padre Menni Mental Health Award

The Padre Menni Hospital Center, which is a referent on mental health in Cantabria, has given the VI Padre Menni Mental Health Award to the project More than Tennis, as a result of the collaboration between the Rafa Nadal Foundation and Special Olympics Spain. The goal of this partnership is to promote the practice of sport by young people with intellectual disabilities.

Ana María Parera, president of the Foundation, was present at the award ceremony, held at the Hospital Center located in Santander, on the 3rd of October. She declared that the project “perfectly represents the fact that sport goes beyond physical activity. Sports also mean fellowship, working hard everyday to improve oneself, developing healthy habits… The young participants at the project More than Tennis have been an example of this every single day for nearly ten years”.

Besides Enric Blesa, director of Special Olympics Spain, many local and regional authorities were present at the ceremony: the president of Cantabria, Miguel Ángel Revilla; the regional adviser of Employment and Social Policies, Ana Belén Álvarez and the councilman of Family, Social Services, Equality and Personal Independence at Santander City Council, Álvaro Lavín; as well as many other important personalities in Cantabrian society, who joined the prize-winners.

The Hospital Center management claimed that, with the Padre Menni Mental Health Award, “this hospital wants to acknowledge the important work that a professional, an organization, and even a private individual, carries out in support of mental health.