EFDN attended first NOVIS project meeting in Milan

EFDN attended first NOVIS project meeting in Milan

From 3rd until 5th of February, EFDN representatives attended the first project meeting of the pan-European NOVIS Programme in Milan.

NOVIS – No Violence in Sport

Since January 2018, EFDN is participating in the pan-European NOVIS programme, coordinated by CGFS, the Italian Youth Centre for Physical Training. Next to EFDN, 10 partner organisations from 6 different EU member states, Italy, Romania, Spain, Greece, Bulgaria and Poland are involved in the programme, which will run until March 2020.

The programme aims to address challenges such as violence and intolerance linked to sport events and to promote the culture of sport, fair play and teamwork. NOVIS sets out to have direct impact on young participants who will be non-formally educated to combat violence in sport and promote the real sport culture and the true European sport values. Participants will increase their responsibility, empowerment and active participation in the prevention of violence in sport. Furthermore, in this way the project will lead to the development of a new educated young generation in Europe. In the long-term, this approach will also benefit the participants involvement in society. Additionally, the project aims at having direct impact on sport stakeholders in order to increase the awareness and visibility of initiatives for combating episodes of violence in sport. This shall contribute to the future development of new partnership and sport networks across Europe.

The overall purpose of the project is to prevent of and fight against incidents of violence, racism and any form of intolerance in sports, particularly in youth sport sectors and at amateur level.

The first No Violence in Sport Project Meeting

From 3rd to 5th of February, EFDN has attended the first project meeting of NOVIS in Milan to share experiences and transfer practices in combating violence in sport. During the meeting, EFDN took part in workshops with local sport stakeholders. Local approaches on how to combat violence in sport were presented. Among others, the partner organisations visited a local school and got familiar with an education programme that addresses the topics of social inclusion and positive support. Next to that, in the framework of the visit local authorities were met. In addition to that, the hosting partners organised the visit to a basketball game where the organisation Communita Nuova celebrated a final event of an anti violence in sport programme for children.

The NOVIS programme objectives are:

• Educating young people about the true sport culture and the values of sport
• Developing training activities through a teachers methodological guide and Open Educational Resources
• Promoting active participation of sport stakeholders (sport clubs) in combating violence in sport
• Raising awareness on the importance of combating violence and racism in sport
• Sharing experience and best practice in the field of the project

Within the programme delivery, EFDN in particular takes responsibility regarding the organisation of networking activities and the exchange of best practices among the parties involved. This includes a final event with more than 100 participants from across Europe.