Need analyses of target group

 

The first step of the project will be to collect and confront needs analysis of the target groups in the partner countries and identify good practices of sport as a social inclusion tool for the target groups.

 

Bulgaria, Hungary and Romania have the heavy burden of thousands of institutionalised children that live in an non family environment. Although the countries have gone through a complex process of deinstitutionalisation, social inclusion of the majorty of these children is far from the desired level.

 

If children are institutionalized for too long, the child will lose the ability to interact with other humans in a normal way. Caregivers frequently complained of aggressive, manipulative behavior and difficulty getting along with peers. A study on Romanian children found that an astounding 55% of preschool-aged children were unable to demonstrate developmentally appropriate social skills.

Many of the region's institutionalized youngsters have light or medium mental retardation, mild forms of autism or trouble interacting socially with others. In the West, most would be living with their families, attending regular schools and learning to integrate into society.

Countries like Bulgaria, Hungary and Romania, however, are struggling to alter a mind-set still widely held after decades of Soviet-era propaganda: the notion that disabled children are best dealt with by being separated from society, community and family.

For many special-needs children, state homes are "an end station".

Sports and in particular team sports are a powerful tool that can help developing social skills like team work, leadership, discipline, respect for others. Generally, the atmosphere that develops within a sports team has a positive effect on youngsters, who learn how to involve and improve themselves in a setting that does not necessarily put them into competition with others.

These are important skills to learn. Cohesiveness is also a trait that kids should be exposed to as early as possible, and teams provide that in abundance. Researchers say that the correlation is especially strong for kids aged 9 to 19, who are exposed to a positive team environment. This implies all the players being equally valued on the field, as well as participating in team activities in members' spare time.

Under the right conditions, youth sport can help children develop transferable personal and social skills – citizenship qualities that they’ll retain throughout their lives.

Through this project we want to go further in using sport as a tool in favor of social inclusion of children in residential care and handicapped children in our countries; the advantage is that sports and physical activities are present in all cultures, countries and social classes. To achieve this goal, interaction and co-operation are required among private sports associations and non-profit organisations that promote the practice of grassroots sport and sport for all in Italy (UISP), Romania (Sport for all) and organisations targeting institutionalised children like the Bulgarian and Hungarian partners. Our partner organisations work for the physical and psychological wellbeing of children, teenagers, youngsters and play a decisive role in organizing extracurricular activities

The SPRINT project will give opportunity to partner organisations to further develop capacity in designing and implementing initiatives for social inclusion of people of disadvantaged background, increase the image of partner organisations as organisations that can work at European level and promote sport as a citizens’ right no matter origin, race and background.