The “WoW Festival – UNCONVENTIONAL SPORTS” (Project Number: 613265-EPP-1-2019-1-IT-SPO-SNCESE) sports event took place at the Forum Sport Center in Rome, from 24 to 26 September 2021. The project, co-funded by the European Commission within the Erasmus+ Sport SNCESE Not-For-Profit European Sport Events programme, aims to:
- Strengthen cooperation between institutions and organisations active in the field of sport and physical activity.
- Improve the participation of sport organisations from different programme countries in enhanced networks.
- Share good practices.
- Encourage participation in sport and physical activity, in particular by supporting the implementation of the EU Sport Guidelines.
- Promote voluntary activity in sport
The consortium, coordinated by CSI – Centro Sportivo Italiano (Italy), involves: CEIPES – (Italy); IRSiE – Instytut Rozwoju Sportu i Edukacji (Poland); Spor Elcileri Dernegi (Turkey); CAI – Conversas Associação Internacional (Portugal); UIB – University of the Balearic Islands (Spain); Association FOOTURA (Bulgaria); Pythia Koinsep (Greece); Rijeka sports association for persons with disabilities (Croatia); FOPSIM – Foundation for the Promotion of Social Inclusion in Malta (Malta); NAPREJ – Centre for Persons with Aquired Brain Injury (Slovenia).
Delegations, consisting of five representatives from each partner country, met at the Forum Sport Center in Rome to spend three days together in the name of sport, cooperation and fun. The Wow Festival allowed all participants to approach and learn about many new sport disciplines that are emerging or need to be reinvented. In particular, here you are the “unconventional sports” that people had the chance to try out: Table football, Showdown, Quidditch, Chess, Cricket, Taichi, Padel, Tennis, Tchoukball, Flying disc, Dodgeball, Welldance and Nordic walking. These are fun, accessible disciplines that are becoming more and more attractive to young people. It was also possible to take part in mini-sports tournaments, enjoying themselves practising different sports disciplines. The Forum Sport Center allowed to use many sports areas, welcoming a significant number of participants in full compliance with the regulations. It was a real “Sports Festival”, organised during the European Week of Sport, in which students and young sportsmen and women also took part. During these three days, people also had the chance to take part in updates and in-depth analysis, thanks to conferences held on current issues, as well as on the future of sports policy and grassroots sport.
For further information, please visit the project website https://wowfestival.it/en/index.php/the-festival/ as well as CEIPES and CSI social media accounts.
