An European collaborative partnership to increase women participation to physical activity programs/WOMEN’S HURDLES

Background Even though is well known that physical activity (PA) plays a critical role in the prevention and treatment of cardiometabolic risk factors, cardiovascular diseases and some cancer the adherence to PA programs of women in the peak of their active life is very difficult to obtain and maintain. This requests an increase in awareness about the risks of sedentary life, but also a creative effort of optimization of time and opportunities to engage women and motivate them to perform PA, breaking down Objectives WOMEN’S HURDLES aimed to develop, implement and transfer innovative practices related to PA in a high-risk and usually hard to reach population: women, especially those with family and working loads.WOMEN’S HURDLES wanted to: •Encourage women’s participation in sport and physical activity•Promote education in and through sport•Reinforce cooperation with partners•Increase quality of sport projects•Create a more dynamic, committed and professional environment Implementation Development of:IO1 - Analysis of the needs and barriers Report IO2 - Web search ReportIO3 – Identification of good practices ReportIO4 – Golden rules to increase women’s participation to physical activity programs/ManifestoIO5 – Training materialsBesides, in the framework of the dissemination activities, the project logo to create the visual identity, the project website in English to present the intellectual outputs (for free download) and other information about the project have been cre Achievements All the project activities have involved many women in all countries, increasing their awareness and motivation and eventually their participation to sport and physical activity.The documents produced, namely reports of the analysis of the needs and barriers, of the web search and of the identification of the good practices, the training materials but, most of all, the Golden rules/Manifesto act as evidence of information to share with the aim to organize best opportunities for European women.