Francisco J. Sardón

Francisco José Sardón Peláez is a person who has devoted his life to defend equal opportunities for people with disabilities. He always knew he wanted to work defending the rights of disabled people and creating services that could foster their active and inclusive participation in society.

Since 1988, after a car accident that caused him a tetraplegia, a serious spinal injury, he knew he wanted to have a participatory social life, and this is why he contributed in the creation of ASPAYM Castilla y León, being founding partner in 1992.

After that, he held leading positions in the association, first being Secretary-general and then president for 8 years of ASPAYM Castilla y León and its foundation (from 2004 to 2012). He has also participated in different campaigns for the prevention of traffic accidents.

He directed the magazine Avances, specialized in the reality of disabled people, and from there he has worked in many other leading positions in the field of associations. For example, he was president of CERMI (Spanish Committee of Representatives of Persons with Disabilities) Castilla y León, the most representative organization of disabled people in the region, which joins the 11 most important federations of disability and brings together more than 250.000 disabled people in Castilla y León.

Apart from that he is also president of PREDIF (Representative State Platform for Physically Disabled People), the main entity in improving the quality of life of people with physical and organic disabilities, which currently represents more than 100.000 people and 400 entities at statewide level. Currently, Francisco Sardón is focused on promoting the development of the personal assistant as a benefit that gives meaning to personal autonomy and philosophy of life, independent of the law of Promotion of Personal Autonomy and Care for people in a situation of dependency.