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KA1 Youth “Education Through Sport”

KA1 Youth TC Education Through Sport

“Education Through Sport” was a Training Course which dealt with the importance of the Sport as an educational tool for promoting social inclusion.

The 12 countries involved in the project were the following: Spain, Norway, Bulgaria, Romania, UK, Morocco, Algeria, Egypt, Tunisia, Jordan, Palestine, plus Italy, in total 28 participants.

The overall aim of the project was to transfer innovative methodologies of non formal education from European to Southern Mediterranean countries creating an important educational path in between South and North of the Mediterranean sea.

Morocco seemed to all the partners the best place since it represents a perfect melting pot of EU and arabic cultures. According to the analysis made by the partners, in the Southern Mediterranean countries there is an huge educational lack: sport is not considered as a non formal education method. Regarding this specific educational need this project was meant to share new tools and strengthen our cooperation.

The target group of the project were social workers, youth workers, youth leaders with experience in sport activity or interested in using Sport as an educational method.

Learning objectives of the TC were:

– To raise knowledge and gain new experiences on Sport and outdoor activities as tools of recognition of non formal learning;

– To clarify the challenges of Sport as a tool for education regarding to content and methodology, non formal and informal learning process, intercultural learning and impact on local community;

– To create a network of professionals (youth leaders, social workers and Trainers) who work with people with fewer opportunities using those new methodologies and ready to develop new E+ projects raising awareness on personal, social and professional development during the work activity.

The main topic of this project was to “use sports as a way of improving active citizenship activities, cultural exchange and social inclusion of young people”.

Sport has an educational dimension and plays a social, cultural and recreational role. It is also a powerful tool for inclusion of people with fewer opportunities: people with disabilities, migrants, persons discriminated by gender and people from rural area. Sport is has the possibility for breaking stereotypes (facilitating the process of integration of immigrants in the society), promoting mutual understanding and intercultural dialogue (use Sport as an universal language) and facilitating the process of social inclusion. Sport is an instrument to fight racism and xenophobia and a supporting tool in including people with special needs.

Therefore its values are fundamental in the third sector’s working processes, where it can be used in order to prevent the sense of intolerance, social exclusion and marginalization.

We asked 4 internationally accredited trainers with huge experience in the youth field and non-formal education through Sport, Roberto Solinas and Maria Grazia Pirina from MVNGO, Shirin Amin from Champion Factory and Razvan Bondalici from STEP to be the experts in our project.