Volunteering for Sporty and Healthy Life

Sport and physical activity contribute to the maintenance of our integral health and to prepare us as individuals and professionals. However, we are witnessing an increase in sedentary habits, early abandonment of sports practice, lack of motivation and little sense of effort. Workers, educators and youth workers often use sport as a tool to encourage the participation of young people, improve their self-esteem, increase their motivation, favour their integral development and fight against social exclusion, as it was also pointed out in the document "Evolution and Perspectives of Community Action in Sport" of the European Commission.Although it is true that there is a wide range of options in which citizens can exercise voluntary action within sport, the latest Eurobarometer report of December 2017 for sport and physical activity shows that only 6% of European citizens are involved in some form of voluntary action in sport. This project responds to the need to recognise voluntary action as a fundamental aspect in the field of physical activity and sport. In an inherent way to the organization of sport events, the volunteers offer an essential and indispensable service. It is therefore essential to value the role they have in these events, so that they are conscious of the importance of their training and can carry out the tasks that they have assigned with the best possible guarantees.The idea for this project was born from the previous experiences of each of the five partner organizations in this field, from the cooperation and joint work we have been doing for some years with these organizations or, indirectly, with partner entities of their local networks, and from the conversations about the needs of our professionals, volunteers and users."Volunteering for Sporty and Healthy Life" is a Small Collaborative Partnership that seeks to reflect on the importance of people who wish to carry out voluntary sports activities, to receive prior training in which they develop a series of knowledge and skills that allow them to carry out effective and quality voluntary work in the sports events in which they participate. The main objectives of the project are: - To improve the key competences of the professionals of the partner organizations and other stakeholders, who wish to train, prepare and manage sport volunteering actions;- To develop the capacity of sport organizations in the management and training of volunteers;- To promote connections and exchange of good practices between sport organisations and organisations in the field of youth and volunteering;- To create a network of organizations in five countries that promote the training, preparation and management of volunteers in the field of sport, both locally, nationally and internationally.To achieve these objectives, different activities were carried out at local and transnational level, divided into the following phases:Management: preparation, management and coordination activities between partners, report writing, partner agreements and dissemination, visibility and exploitation of results activities.Coordination meeting (Kaunas, Lithuania): first face-to-face meeting of the partners to specify strategies, plan the local work phases and define the activities of dissemination, visibility and exploitation of results.Local Activities I (each country): Analysis and diagnosis of the reality.International seminar (Spain): 3-day seminar to exchange good practices between professionals from different countries and create a training proposal.Local Activities II (June-October 2019, each country): Validation of the training proposal and visibility of the results.Multiplier event/final conference in Athens, Greece