Sports play a central role in contemporary society, contributing not only to healthy and active living, but also to social well-being, cohesion and inclusion.
The importance of sports goes beyond the obvious physical benefits, providing common ground for people of different ages, cultures and backgrounds. Through sporting activity, core values such as loyalty, fair play, mutual respect and cooperation are promoted.
Sports and physical activity improve health and cognitive ability, increase self-esteem, and develop crucial social skills. In addition, sports provide an opportunity for people of all ages to have fun, challenge and surpass themselves through the pursuit of personal and collective goals.
In this context, the European Week of Sport, an initiative promoted by the European Commission, becomes a major event as it aims to raise awareness of the fundamental importance of sports and physical activity in everyone’s life.
During European Week of Sport, sports events, initiatives and activities are organized involving individuals, organizations, schools, institutions and communities throughout Europe. This special time makes it possible to experience the excitement and benefits of physical activity, as well as raise awareness of the relevance of sport in our society.
Once again this year, the European Commission is promoting European Week of Sport with its #BeActive campaign. Launched in 2015 by the European Union, European Week of Sport promotes sport and healthy, active lifestyles in order to increase the physical and mental well-being of all European citizens.
Our initiatives focus on sports and involve all Units, demonstrating our intense care for the importance of sports for education and social inclusion.
EcoFitness – Introducing Green and Sustainable Practices into Fitness Training
Integrating green practices into fitness training, providing the educational community with tools to measure, mitigate and improve sustainability and social impact has become fundamental. As well as designing and adopting new training methods and innovative tools by introducing green practices into sports facilities. With these objectives the project EcoFitness was born.
Climate change, now evident, must be fought through every single tool available. Sport is a vehicle capable of promoting various values, respect for the environment and sustainability are among these.
EcoFitness aims to increase awareness of green practices and participation in physical activities by stakeholders and local communities through:
- the collection of best practices in the field of sustainable practices in partner countries,
- the development and creation of ad hoc exercises,
- the development of sustainable training paths according to ecological standards, the setting up of the “EcoFitness system” in each partner organization or in associated fitness facilities
- the organization of training and testing sessions of resources with trainers and end users.
For more information please visit the project’s website ecofitness-project.eu, write us at the project’s Facebook page facebook.com/ecofitnesseu or contact Emiliano Mungiovino: emiliano.mungiovino@cesie.org.
Green League – Sport alliance for the environment
Encourage the population to take urgent action to combat climate change and its impact and promote healthy living and well-being for all. It is from these needs that the Green League was born, which uses sport as a tool to generate environmental awareness and contribute to a healthier lifestyle.
After developing a Model that guides professionals and sports clubs towards greater environmental sustainability by providing useful tools, sports activities in nature are currently being organised in the project’s 6 partner countries with the aim of stimulating critical thinking and generating environmental awareness.
To keep up to date and to benefit from the tools already developed follow our Facebook page, visit the website green-league.eu or write to Giulia Siino: giulia.siino@cesie.org.
INCLUDE – INCLUsive acaDemiEs
The INCLUDE project aims to counter discriminatory behaviour in youth sport and contribute to making the sporting environment safe and accessible for all. To do this, the project partnership, after conducting research on discrimination in youth sport, is now developing a training curriculum and a set of tools that will help improve the knowledge and skills of coaches and sports academy staff in counteracting violence and discrimination.
To keep up to date follow the INCLUDE Facebook page, visit the project website include-project.com or write to Giulia Siino: giulia.siino@cesie.org.
INCLUSION RELOADED
Based on the premise that sport serves as a forum for people of different backgrounds to engage socially, INCLUSION RELOADED seeks to equip sport trainers, teachers and educators with ideas of innovative inclusive sport sessions that will enable them to include young people who are usually marginalised in the various physical education or sports contexts.
After an insightful Study Visit in Sarajevo, experts of the eight partner organisations developed a Collection of good practices. Stay tuned to discover the Manual and Youtube tutorials that will be shared in the upcoming months!
If you are a sport teacher or trainer and could be interested in taking part in the international training and local training on inclusive sport methodologies, reach out to suzanne.ott@cesie.org.
ORIENT – orienteering for the social inclusion of youth
ORIENT stemmed from the idea of bringing together different social and cultural groups of young people at risk of social exclusion through orienteering, a particular grassroot sport, which has been shown to play a key role in building communities and creating more inclusive societies.
Based on an innovative, user-friendly digital curriculum, ORIENT trained more than 60 trainers & CSO workers in Italy, Greece, Cyprus, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria and Austria and engaged 200 + young people in co-creation mapping workshops and an orienteering context. The experiences was merged in the ORIENT Compendium with 5 national orienteering routes, available to youth workers or trainers seeking engaging and innovative methodologies to promote inclusion and knowledge of the local context.
Visit orientproject.eu/resources for resources or orientproject.eu/georientcache to discover our national routes!
CESIE also host coaches and other sport members within The Mobility of staff in the field of sport, from the sport organisations around programme countries for a short period of the mobility in Palermo. The aim is to enable staff of sport organisations, primarily in grassroots sports, to improve their competences and qualifications, and acquire new skills, by spending a period of time abroad.
If you are an organisation looking for a host organisation in Italy, please contact us at mobility@cesie.org.
