AHHV - Active, Healthy and Happy Volunteers at European Youth Olympic Festival - Maribor 2023

In 2023 the Olympic Committee of Slovenia will organise the European Youth Olympic Festival, a non-profit sporting event for young athletes in collaboration with the City of Maribor and European Olympic Committees. The organisers are well aware that the event will be an important sports event in Slovenia. More than 3000 young athletes will participate and require the support of more than 1000 volunteers. The project aims to realise the organisation of a European dimension in sport event with particular focus on volunteering in sport. The Olympic Committee of Slovenia cannot cover the costs of volunteer work, but organisers of the European Youth Olympic Festival (EYOF) are developing a system for rewarding volunteers through their engagement, experience, knowledge and interaction with festival participants. Volunteers will benefit from the project by being able to take part in programmes and workshops on the topic of healthy lifestyles and special sports training events. From this perspective we may refer to the priorities of the Erasmus+ Call as well as the needs of volunteers (Social inclusion through sport; Encouraging participation in sport and physical activity). Within the project we have focused on long-term outcomes that will be useful for the organisers of future non-profit sports events. The first outcome will be a Manual – guidelines on how to include volunteers in the side activities of sporting events so that they can benefit from engagement, inclusion, training and education. The second predicted long-term outcome is the development of a digital tool for the efficient coordination of volunteers, to motivate their participation in the side activities of important sporting events, and collect feedback about their engagement.