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Olympic Dreams

2020-2-PL01-KA105-0829512020Youth mobilityfinalized
Countries: PL|EL|RS|CZ|PT|SK|BG · Grant: €21,849.44
Disabilities - special needsYouth (Participation, Youth Work, Youth Policy)Health and wellbeing

Objectives

The two most important goals of our project, i.e. the desire to experience sports competition and to delve into and understand the beautiful and lofty ideas accompanying the organization and participation in the Olympic Games, as well as the symbolism related to the Olympic Games, have been successfully implemented by us. During the implementation of the project (and especially during the youth exchange), we created a project space in which, in accordance with the previously made assumptions, we managed to dream our "Olympic dream", acquiring during it knowledge, skills and, above all, attitudes, which in accordance with the previous assumptions our expectations have allowed us to become better people. Despite the pandemic, we managed to organize our project together with a wide group of foreign partners. Thanks to this, at GOK in Wierzchosławice (the place where the youth exchange takes place), we were able to feel the atmosphere that prevails in the Olympic village where they live, eat shared meals, and sportsmen from different countries spend together day and night. During the youth exchange, we had the opportunity to function in a multicultural world. These are experiences that for many of us were the first experiences of this type in our lives. Although this state of affairs lasted only 8 days (during the youth exchange), this period has brought us many valuable life experiences that will remain with us for many years. During the project, we managed to achieve all the assumed goals, so; a) highlight the sports competition in line with the idea of ​​"Citius Altius Fortius" - "Faster, Higher, Stronger" and also take part in sports competition (in direct connection with the ideas accompanying the Olympic Games) together with the local community, b) learn about the history and symbolism of IO and understand their timeless message, c) delve into the world of ideas accompanying IO, such as the ideas of equality, fair play, peace, as well as learn to incorporate these ideas into our everyday life, move in this respect from theory to everyday practice. d) disseminate knowledge about the idea of ​​Olympic Games among as many people as possible in order to change our approach to life not only in terms of sports, but also civic and social issues. Our project, in accordance with the assumptions adopted by all participating organizations (and participants of youth exchange), was in line with the objectives of the Erasmus + program and youth exchange campaigns, because it enabled us to: organize a meeting of young people from different countries in order to get to know their cultures and confront different perceptions reality, discussing topics of interest to us at the international level, carrying out interesting projects based on the assumptions of non-formal education, which allowed us to understand the essence of the issues that we had to deal with within the project, raise the level of key competences (including language, work in international groups, project awareness) skills (including: organizing events activating large groups of people in sports competitions, activating people with disabilities to active life), promoting civic activity (e.g. by associating and practicing sports and popularizing physical activity) and intercultural dialogue, counteracting social exclusion (especially in relation to people with disabilities), strengthening cooperation between our organizations. Importantly, we prepared and implemented the project personally (with the support of our organizations and specialists) based on real partnership cooperation between our organizations / groups. Through the implementation of the project, we have acquired practical knowledge on 1) how to successfully organize large sports events in which dozens of people take part, 2) how to combine the aspect of sports competition with the lofty ideas accompanying the Olympic Games, 3) disseminate knowledge about the Olympic Games, 4) learn about the history and understand the symbolism accompanying the Olympic Games, 5) thoroughly explore the idea of ​​equality, peace, fair play and find references to our everyday life for them, 6) become sensitive to the fate of people with disabilities and learn how to you can support such people and activate them to play sports, 7) develop project awareness and enter a higher organizational level in the context of project implementation, 8) learn about the specificity of life in other countries, understand the way people living in other countries function, as well as get rid of ethnic prejudices, 9) develop European awareness, especially in the field of implementation use of the synergy effect during the implementation of international projects, 10) acquire key competences (e.g. communication in English). The implementation of the project strengthened our organizations in the local and regional dimension, and also allowed us to expand the network of international contacts.

Project partners (7)