The consortium of Sports4All meets in Greece to counter Educational Poverty

From 15 to 17 March 2023, the Transnational practical workshop “Training of Trainers” of the Sports4All project, took place in Volos, Greece. The event, hosted by the Center of Education and Innovation, consisted in developing new and more inclusive methodologies to counter Educational Poverty starting from the mapping of existing ones. 

During the 3-days long event, the project’s leader Cooperativa Sociale Kirikù together with the partners: InnovED, TPV Volley Novo Mesto, ALDA, and  Asociación Mar Violeta discussed the monitoring questionnaires results developed over the previous months, and together with the trainers, exchanged opinions and practices about:

• the concept of educational poverty;
• tools to better dialogue with families;
• activities to better stimulate cooperation and relationship with peers;
• tools to better dialogue and exchange opinions with colleagues;
• activities to commonly define the respect of rules;
• providing common tools for training and suggestions. 

The participants also focused on training sessions adopted according to children’s needs, and on cooperative games that help them to play together and stay focused. 

The workshop focused on developing new and more inclusive methodologies to counter Educational Poverty

According to the definition provided by Save the Children Organisation, Educational Poverty is “The impossibility for children and teenagers to learn, experiment, develop and freely foster their capacities, talents and aspirations.” 

The Sports4All project’s main goal is to foster the competencies of trainers and coaches to work with children and young people who lack opportunities in different fields, including the right to play and participate in sports activities. 

During the event, the project’s partners, coaches, professional pedagogists and educators specialised in sport and in working with youth, identified the existing inclusion methodologies and developed new ones. The results from this meeting will be gathered together and they will form the Sports4all method, which will be tested in each partners’ country.   

The next step will consist in disseminating the Sports4All method in sport clubs, and the final result will contribute to identify a common guideline to pave the way for disadvantaged youth’s inclusion in sport, at policy, relational and educational level.