ORI-YOEU - Orienteering for kids and young athletes in the EU

The project aims to build a European network of sport orienteering coaches for the definition of good practices in training children and young athletes up to 14 years of age through direct field validation of training methods and models. The partnership is composed of six European organisations (from Belgium, Italy, Latvia, Poland, Romania and Spain) with different backgrounds. Sport club "ASD Nirvana Verde" from Civate (Italy) is the coordinator. The project will directly involve more than 120 people including coaches, trainers, teachers, sports managers and of course young athletes. Indirectly, dozens of other people throughout the European Union will benefit from the results of the project by having the availability of validated coaching material. Three specific focuses are foreseen in the project. The first is trail orienteering (precision orienteering) in which children and young athletes, able-bodied or with disabilities, can compete on equal footing; the second is environmental education and the teaching of behaviours aimed at preserving climate and the natural environment (which in the case of orienteering is also the main competition facility); and the third is the use of digital tools for teaching orienteering. A central part of the project, fostering mobility and direct encounters between coaches and young athletes, is the organisation of 6 local training camps where to on-field validate the good practices, offering a unique opportunity to its youngest citizens for discovering the importance, values and initiatives of EU. The content collected or produced in the project (at least 60 units) will be made available under an open licence on the project website. Furthermore, several activities are foreseen to involve stakeholders and enlarge the network of trainers (e.g. through at least 3 webinars) as well as communication and dissemination through digital initiatives (300+ followers) and display (5.000+ people reached).