European Sport Platform: A thrilling set of conferences around sport in Rome

After a successful first edition last year and enriching debates around central issues like future of sports club and esport organization, ENGSO (European Non-Governmental Sports Organisation), the umbrella organization of national sport confederations and National Olympic Committee from 34 European countries is organizing the second edition of their European Sports Platform. As an active contributor on the topics, Sport and citizenship will be partnering with ENGSO on the event.

The event aim to gather around the table ENGSO members and various other sport stakeholders such as volunteers or professionals to address central topics and share experiences.

This year’s edition will be hosted by the OPES Italia (Organizzazione Per l’Educazione allo Sport) and organized in partnership with the European Lotteries. The event will take place in Appia Park in Rome the 04th and 05th of October.

There’s a busy programme waiting for the participants with three disparate topics.

Volunteers, the everyday heroes of sport

Most of sports stakeholders are volunteers (coaches, board members officials) and are doing a tremendous work to train players, organize and implement the competitions all around Europe. The importance of the job done by volunteers is often underestimated. It needs to be re-evaluated regarding what they bring to the organizations and, widely, to the society in general by educating, training and bringing opportunities to everyone from young ages and onward. The goal of the first session is then to discuss how can we measure the economic value of volunteering?

A second session on the subject will address the raising difficulty to engage volunteers. Are the skills developed while volunteering enough to attract them and how the organizations are dealing with this growing difficulty?

SCORE for diversity in governance

As sport concerns and includes everyone regardless of origins, religions, gender or disability, sports organizations in order to tend to a better governance should be the reflection of the society and be fully diverse.  The SCORE for diversity Erasmus + project (2014-2016) aimed to increase the number of female coaches in Europe. Sport and citizenship has a strong interest on the topic and produced a lot of documents regarding the subject. Our latest journal focused on sport and gender and how it participates in women‘s empowerment. Earlier this year we also released a book : sport as a means of empowering women and girls all over the world. Three years after the end of the SCORE project, what changes can be seen and what remains to be done?

Healthy body – healthy mind ?

The last topic of the event will focus on the link between sport and mental health. Enhancing sport activity could be helping to prevent and to fight mental health issues. Actors of sport organizations need tools to be able to develop their knowledge on the topic to support properly individuals suffering from it. At Sport and citizenship, we strongly believe that health-sport is a major topic that needs to be deepened. We already highlighted in projects like PASS the impact of physical activity on health, and we’re currently running a study for ANDES on the medical prescription of sports sessions. What do we really know about sports contribution in the mental health area? This will be the opportunity to discuss it and bring solutions around the table.

You can find further informations and register on the European Sport platform website.