European everyday of sport project is designed to improve sharing of good practices, priority of Erasmus+ programme, to find and promote good practices from first and second edition of European Week of Sport and to encourage participation in sport and physical activity. The most specific topic this strategic partnership will be focused is the development, identification, promotion and sharing of good practices.
In 2007, the White Paper on Sport was issued by the European Commission as the first policy document addressing sport on behalf of the European Union. The Lisbon Treaty (2009) introduced a specific article which gave the EU a new supporting competence for sport. In 2011, the Commission adopted a Communication entitled "Developing the European Dimension in Sport" providing for specific actions regarding the societal role of sport, sport's economic dimension and the organisation of sport. Based on this Communication, the Council adopted a Resolution on an EU Work Plan for Sport 2011-2014, which further strengthened European cooperation on sport by setting priorities for EU level work engaging the EU Member States and the Commission. In 2012, the Council adopted conclusions on promoting health-enhancing physical activity and on strengthening the evidence-base for sport policy making. Following a proposal from the Commission, for the first time, financial support for sport is now included in form of a specific chapter in Erasmus for the period 2014-2020, which decision is warmly welcomed by all partner organisations of this current project.
Despite the growing importance attached to the promotion of physical activity in EU Member States, the previous “Eurobarometer” survey in 2009 identified “alarmingly high” rates of physical inactivity in the EU, and found that the vast majority of Europeans (60%) never exercise or play sport. The last published “Eurobarometer” survey in 2014 stated very similar data, as in 41% of Europeans exercise or play sport at least once a week, while 59% of EU citizens never or seldom do so.
Based on the gap, stated in the aforementioned analysis, it is more than visible that the importance of highlighting and promoting sport and physical activity is a priority of all European organizations, working on local, national or European level. This is why the current project proposal is aiming to find the way of analyzing, collecting and promoting the good practices in the different target groups – kids, youth, in school, working people, active aging people, in the city, in small village. We believe that the added value from the opportunity to create awareness of the importance of health-enhancing physical activities though increased participation in and equal access to sport for all, will contribute to the increasing of people who exercise or play sport at regular basis and all project products will be resourceful for the specialists in sport, health, youth policy, educational institutions, local authorities, NGO’s, national authorities in their daily work.
The current collaborative partnership will implement various activities on local, national and international level; will focus in collecting, development, identification, analyzing, promotion and sharing good practices from Europe and the World that can be easily implemented in the work of the experts in the mentioned fields. Project will focus also in the activities, held by the first and second edition of “European week of sport” and will collect all the good practices, realized in 2015 and 2016 in the Member countries. These tools will be very useful in the planning of next editions of the EWoS and other events to promote health-enhancing physical activity through increased participation in, and equal access to, sport for all.
All activities we will held by this project will be devoted in supplying the need of open recourses with detailed focus on specific target groups and opportunities to make the movement part of the daily schedule of more and more people in Europe. As we have mentioned afore, the tools and instruments to make Europe a moving nation are still not the most effective and we are observing the results in the data from both “Eurobarometer” 2009 and 2014. This is the obvious need this consortium will try to deal with and create a short cut between the target groups (direct – sport, health and youth specialists, educational institutions, local authorities, NGO’s, national authorities and indirect – kids, youth, working people, active aging people, people living in cities and small villages) and physical activity as a “positive medicine” for personal, professional and social development of individuals.
Main objectives, we will focus in the project are:
- Improved sharing and promotion of good practices in the field of sport and physical activity.
- Collection of good practices of the previous editions of European week of sport.
- By this project, will be strengthen the evidence base for policy making (studies, data gathering, surveys) at local, national and European level.
- Will be increased the knowledge and awareness regarding sport and physical activity, as in the same moment, will be strengthened the cooperation between institutions and organizations active in the field of sport and physical activity, not only inside the consortium, but also at local level in the partner organizations countries.
- Promotion of tools for different professional groups to work for motivating more people to do sports in every day life - 8 good practise manuals elaborated (How to be active every day for kids; How to be active every day for youth; How to be active every day in school; How to be active every day for working people; How to be active every day for active aging people; How to be active every day in the city; How to be active every day in small village; Good practice manual of EWoS 2015 and 2016. Each of the manuals will collect the best possible practices from Europe and the world with tips for implementation of each of the topics.) - published as Open Educational Resources, available for NGO’s, sport organizations, local/regional/national institutions and other interested.
- Improve good governance in sport with shortcut to resources - Educational platform and Android/IPhone application - innovative database of “sport ideas” - a search engine. In this search engine, you will be asked to put your living place, your occupation, your age group and the engine will give you ideas how you can be active every day.
- Create an innovative network of professionals, devoted to active living from different parts of Europe, who will be committed to the project not only during project life, but also after the project end with development and growing good practice database.
- Collection of ideas for the development of the idea of “Every day of sport” in the daily life of the European citizens.
- Raise awareness on the added value of sport and physical activities in relation to the personal, professional and social development of individuals through all planned project activities.
- Raise awareness on the importance of health-enhancing effects of physical through all planned project activities.
- Increase participation in physical activities and sport by increased number of local actions and events, awareness-raising activities and providing opportunity to individuals to personally experience the benefits of physical activities.
- Disseminate the accumulated knowledge and expertise of the partnership, its newly developed tools and best practices to inspire and promote further collaborations and synergies on the related topics.
- Empower specialists from different fields with the tools and instruments to act freely in their daily work, with the ideas that they can implement directly.
The European Everyday of Sport project was held in the period 2016-2017 and was aimed at improving the exchange of good practices, the priority of Erasmus +, helping to identify and promote good practices from first and second edition of the European Week of Sport and promoting participation in sport and physical activity. The specific theme of this strategic partnership was focused on developing, identifying, promoting and sharing good practices.
In July 2018, the Directorate-General Education, Youth, Sport and Culture informed the Bulgarian sports development association that Project #EUEverydaySport was selected as Success story and Good practice by experts from the Directorate-General. "Success stories" are finalised projects that have distinguished themselves by their impact, contribution to policy-making, innovative results and/or creative approach and can be a source of inspiration for others. The selection of your project as a success story was made on the basis of rigorous criteria regarding its quality, relevance and results.
Project "European everyday of sport is co- funded by the European Commission "Erasmus +" - Sports - Collaborative partnerships in the sport field and Not-for-profit European sport events. Project “European everyday of sport” - 572647-EPP-1-2016-BG-SPO-SCP is with total budget 96 321 euro and is implemented by international consortium of 7 countries – Bulgaria - Bulgarian sports development association, Italy - Mine Vaganti NGO, Croatia - Riječki Sportski Savez, Hungary - Reményt a Gyermekeknek Közhasznú Egyesület / Hope for Children Hungary, Lithuania - Vilniaus kolegija / University of Applied Sciences, Poland - Stowarzyszenie Instytut Nowych Technologii / Association Institute of Innovative Technologies, Slovakia - A.D.E.L. – Association for Development, Education and Labour.
