Sport for Commuity Development

PROJECT OBJECTIVESThe project Sport for Community Development was aimed to work on the theme of community development throughout sports, through an exchange of good practices among the partner and the creation of some intellectual outputs.At the base of this project we find the concept of community and sport as an educational tool.The community represents a very important aspect – we might even say fundamental – of living together in a society. It becomes more and more important as much as other social structures are becoming weaker, such as the traditional family and the old typologies of participation in politics (like political parties, workers’ unions, the political movements, etc.).Societal well-being is, indeed, strictly tied to the chance of creating positive relationships within one’s own community, to the chance of creating solidarity and mutual aid, to the respect of diversities, cultural exchange and coexistence.Stated the importance of community for the society, and the problem that communities are encountering because of the transformation of society (urbanization, economical crisis, intercultural conflicts, etc.), our starting issue has been the question: how sport can support a positive sense of community?Sport and sports-related activities, are infact an element that can help with community development, when: -they provide opportunities to facilitate good relationship among the community members, allowing to overcame cultural and social differences;-they focus on the entertainment in playing and in meeting others instead of simple, pure competition;-there’s a choice of multiple sport disciplines and phisical activities that can involve the largest possible number of people, intercepting different interests, generations and social classes;Another element we wanted to explore with this project concern the concept of Community Development, as a process that include the emersion and enhancement of a community’s resources; indeed, every human group has its specific resources coming from the histories and skills of the people it’s created of, from the resources tied to the territory, etc. Within this frame, specific objective of our project has been to create an original methodology that combines sports and an approach to community development, producing intellectual outputs and activities in order to support operators and volunteers to become development facilitators in communities, throughout sports.The project, from this point of view, was coherent to the priority “To promote voluntary activities in sport, together with social inclusion, equal opportunities and awareness of the importance of health-enhancing physical activity through increased participation in, and equal access to, sport for all”. PROJECT ACTIVITIESThe project, according to the application form, has seen the following activities.A – FIRST PROJECT PHASE- Preparatory actions- Communication and dissemination tools.B – CREATION OF THE INTELLECTUAL OUTPUTS B1 –Collectionof best practice on Sport for Community Development – March 2017 – September 2017B2 – SportCD Training module – May 2017 – September 2018B3 – SportCD Handbook – May 2017 – October 2018C – OUTPUT TESTING AND NATIONAL EVENTSC1 – Training for multipliers – January - October 2018C2 – Output testing- first SportCD Day - May – November 2018D – FINALIZATION OF THE OUTPUTS AND SUSTAINABILITY ACTIONSD1 - Finalization of products D2 - Sustainability actions E – TRASVERSAL ACTIONS E1 – ManagementE2 - DisseminationE3 - Evaluation