SCHOOLYARDS4SPORT IS A EUROPEAN INITIATIVE
WE BELIEVE
that can solve this situation, offering a win-win-win solution that can involve local Municipalities, Schools and Sports Clubs.
Inadequacy of school facilities
Inactivity costs 80,4 billion euros per year to the EU, which is equivalent to 6,2% of all health spending (Report “The economic cost of physical inactivity in Europe” by ISCA & Cebr).
This is particularly worrying among younger populations.
According to the “Update on the status of physical education in schools worldwide” by the World Health Organization (WHO), although there are legal requirements for physical education to be taught at school all around Europe, the actual implementation does not usually meet these obligations.
As an example, in Italy students only practice 810 hours of physical education per year, leading to 35% of them being overweight and 10/12% obese (1º Report “Sport & Society” by the National Italia Olympic Comity).
The main problem this project want to address is the inadequacy of sport facilities. “All sports and physical activities need a place to be played”. Simple but critical starting consideration. The availability of sport facilities is the first precondition for the development of sport practices. Moreover, it is not only a quantity matter but also a quality one. The population’s sport participation depends both on the amount but also on the nature of the sport facilities.
At the moment the number of sport facilities is not sufficient. For instance, in Italy only 5,4% of sport associations owns facilities for the execution of its activities, with 53% of the spaces being of public property (1º Report “Sport & Society” by the National Italia Olympic Comity, 2008). Similar data can be found in Spain (64% of sport clubs make use of public facilities versus 10% who owns them), Belgium (65% public versus 26% private) and Germany (65% public versus 49% private) (“Characteristics of European Sport Clubs”, 2017, co-funded by Erasmus +)
In addition, Municipalities faces economical difficulties, there are administrative limitations in promoting public and private collaboration which potential is underestimated, including unavailable spaces for grassroots sport programs due to inadequate sport facilities, shortages of equipment and poor maintenance of many overlooked public sites.
The recommendations of the European Commision’s Expert Group on Health-enhancing physical activity are very relevant for this project: “Schools and local sport organizations need appropriate sport facilities to develop their activities in safe and healthy environments. There is a common interest to share facilities. (…) Such partnerships would be beneficial for regular physical education classes but would also provide for new or expanded opportunities for after-school physical activity programmes”. In this sense, “Local authorities should develop efficient models to plan, manage and fund high quality and safe physical activity and sport infrastructures making them accessible for schools”.
The project focuses on studying, creating, testing and disseminating a strategic administrative mechanism managed by municipalities and designed to stimulate local collaborative partnerships between sports organizations and schools in order to co-govern, take care and regenerate the schools’ open-air spaces, as valuable commons to expand and improve the provision of recreational sport practices, in an innovative way and in new close-to-home venues.
The goal of the project is to support municipalities and sport organizations with the bureaucratic procedures through the offering of pre_designed administrative mechanism and the creation of online Communities of Practice.
The objectives of this initiatives are:
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