European competition for autistic people

The Filippide Association propose to organize the European Competition for Autistic People, ECAP, as first European not-for-profit event promoting social inclusion of athletes with autistic syndrome. The ECAP event has took place in Rome in November 2017, and it aimed at increasing visibility of sports events promoting inclusion, by targeting participation of disadvantaged groups, training paths and cooperation among public institutions. The ECAP will increase participation in physical activities with a focus on grass-roots sports as running and swimming, by supporting the sport for all concept, sport participation, working and volunteering in sports.By innovating the sport domain with new sport training practices and by raising awareness on intellectual disabilities at EU level, the project has performed the following activities:- Run for Autism, an open competition including autistic and neurotypical athletes;- Swimming cup for autistic athletes- ECAP opening ceremony introducing the event following the model of the Olympic Games- Autism Multisport day training athletes for swimming, running and sailing sports competitions- Sport training activities targeted at the needs of autistic athletes- Seminars related to the disability sport sector.Volunteers and social workers will attend the European competition as beneficiaries of the sport training programmes targeted at the needs of disabled athletes. Volunteers are an integral part of not-for-profit organisations, as they will double each athlete in his everyday activities and sport training. Besides their professional experiences, they require specific communication abilities and sport skills to support athletes during their social inclusion process. During the ECAP project volunteers and social workers will be trained by sport experts: participants of the training scheme will learn about their role within the sport system, their responsibilities and innovative training solutions (by music too) to get to know the disability sport sector.For participating organisations, ECAP allowed to: share new knowledge about training schemes within the disability sport sector applied to autism; gain new understanding of specific intellectual disability issues linked to the autistic syndrome; experience social inclusion practices linked to the sport sector; have the chance to contribute to the design of a sport training schemes targeted at autistic athletes, then testing activities and familiarising with the autism syndrome in sports; gain and share knowledge about training programmes to educate their volunteers.