Move to Improve

Statistics show that 90% of young people use computers and watch TV every day (Eurostats). This naturally leads to less physical activity, and consequently higher obesity and other health problems (WHO statistics show that prevalence of obesity nearly doubled between 1980 and 2018). At the same time, youth have less time for live communication with their peers; thus, can develop further social barriers. In addition, even though general volunteering is gaining more and more popularity in Europe, according to the GHK study on “Volunteering in European Union”, sports voluntary activities are way more prevalent in North & West than in East Europe (i.e. especially in post-Soviet countries). For example, sports volunteering represents a significant share of the adult population in Norway 30%-36% and conversely in Hungary 12.2%; Italy and Lithuania 10%; Bulgaria 6%. This was the knowledge behind the idea of "Move To Improve" project. Seeing that there is a need for action in Lithuania to promote grassroots sports, physical activity and sports volunteering, the Integration Center team started to collaborate with other countries that have similar problems and the idea of the project was born.To tackle these problems, 6 sports organizations from Lithuania, Hungary, Bulgaria, Croatia, Italy, and Norway were willing to carry out a project - “Move to Improve” (MTI) that took the opportunity to reaffirm the importance of grassroots sports & sports volunteering in an international environment. The two big objectives that the consortium had when implementing the project were to:(1) promote social inclusion, equal opportunities, and awareness of the importance of health-enhancing physical activity through grassroots sports for underprivileged youth;(2) promote voluntary activities in sport.In addition to these objectives, the key goals of the NGOs corresponding to the “Move To Improve” project were helping underprivileged youth in Lithuania and other EU countries to: (1) be better integrated into society;(2) get access to using all the public (sports) facilities;(3) help youth build new cooperations for sports initiatives, increase the needed skills for that as well as motivation for (sports) volunteering;(4) enhance youth’s self-esteem, digital & multilingualism skills, social awareness, tolerance, and other important values;(5) facilitate cooperation between different Lithuanian sports organizations, NGOs, youth workers, and sports trainers; (6) raise awareness about EU citizenship, work towards reducing youth unemployment; defend human rights and work on elimination of discrimination;(7) initiate social inclusion and provide opportunities for everyone willing to do sports;(8) raise awareness of the importance of health-enhancing physical activity through grassroots sports. At the same time, we aimed to inform the public about different ethnic minorities in order to boost tolerance and lower xenophobia. This was done by also promoting Erasmus+ projects and opportunities behind it because it is one of the best ways to fight the previously mentioned problems.