Rafa Nadal Foundation has chosen Vicente Ferrer Foundation to carry out one of its first cooperation projects. Rafa Nadal and representatives of the Foundation with his name have celebrated the opening of an integrated education school in the district of Anantapur, located in the Indian state of Andhra Pradesh, where Vicente Ferrer Foundation has been working for the past 40 years implementing its integrated development program.

The aim of this new school is to offer educational, psycho-social, health and nutritional support to more than hundred children who belong to the most backward communities, such as dalits, tribal groups and backward castes. Together with education, sports and in particular tennis will become an efficient tool for the integration of all these boys and girls of different castes, ages and places. During the opening ceremony on October 17th, Rafa Nadal played tennis with the students of this new school.

The player said: “I’m really happy to be here visiting the school and meeting the children who will

study here. I hope they will like it and I hope this project will help them to get an education and to have all they need. I wish to see those who will study here have a new life when I come back in a few years time”.

Moncho Ferrer, program director at Vicente Ferrer Foundation, stressed the importance of this type of education center for children development: “The Education and Sports School that we have funded by Rafa Nadal Foundation has a medium of sports to help children’s development. So as the philosophy of the Foundation we use sport as a means for development. This project has three tennis coaches with whom our children can come and practice, learn and play tennis. Along with it we have English, mathematics and IT. From these three subjects we have especially selected information technology because it represents better the world we live in nowadays and rural children don’t have this type of opportunity. Then English and mathematics are taught at a lower level”.


The education program of Vicente Ferrer Foundation is made of different subjects and branches that contribute to the cultural and artistic development of children and young people, including art, drama, music, dance and sports. As mentioned above, Vicente Ferrer Foundation targets the most discriminated and excluded groups in India. However, the practice of sports contributes to solidarity and group cohesion. These values and feelings progressively extend to other aspects of daily life where boys and girls from different castes get together and become integrated.


Best Regards,Rafa