#SMILE - Sport, Motivation, Inclusion, Leadership, Engagement

People with intellectual disabilities and/or mental health challenges are still subject of wide discrimination and impossibility to be properly included in the society. Sport is one of the most powerful tools that can support the inclusion process and in a gentle way present an opportunity for the mentioned target group to feel accepted and part of a group. Sport, Motivation, Inclusion, Leadership, Engagement #SMILE project aims to analyse the link between sport and inclusion in an innovative and different way – by ensuring international participation in sport activities of persons with intellectual disability and/or mental health challenges. Through the project activities, we aim to empower persons with intellectual disability and/or mental health challenges from Bulgaria and Croatia to: • Discover the power of sport as an inclusion mechanism through personal experience; • Co-create together with the partners experts a good practices tool-kit of Inclusion through sport for persons with intellectual disability and/or mental health challenges; • Take part in an international sport event #SMILE; • Implement local training sessions with the persons with intellectual disability and/or mental health challenges in order to ensure snowfall effect; • Ensure good practices transfer between project partners. #SMILE project is totally in line with the horizontal objectives, pursued by the Erasmus+ Programme aiming to ensure inclusion and diversity in all fields of education, training, youth and sport as the project idea itself is a representation of the inclusion of a highly disadvantage group into international activities. The proposal is in line as well with the priority of encouraging participation in sport and physical activity as all the actions that SMILE will implement are focused on sustainable involvement of persons with intellectual disabilities in sport activities on local, national and international level.