NEWS

From the 28th to the 29th of January the kick-off meeting of the Pro Safe Sport for Young Athletes (PSS) project was held in Vienna.

The European Commission awarded a grant to the Enlarged Partial Agreement on Sport of the Council of Europe (EPAS) to implement this project along with 14 organisations. One of the partners in the project is EAS.

The main aim of the project is to promote physical and moral integrity of young athletes by supporting the implementation of relevant safeguarding activities, procedures and processes. The project is aiming to develop tools to raise awareness on health and safety issues in the athletes’ environment, to develop a self-assessment tool for organisations working with young athletes, to provide guidance on health and safety measures; to call upon relevant organisations to form a network and to establish a virtual resource center on the project. The kick-off meeting was held in the House of Sports in Vienna and was hosted and moderated by Mr. Michael Trinker from EPAS. During the two days of the meeting the participants got to know each other and the general topic. Ms. Elena Rapti, Member of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe was a special expert at the event, and she shared her experience in the awareness-raising about child harassment and abuse.

After the introductory speeches the participants worked in smaller groups to identify the topic more. Then Mr. Trinker shared some information about the communication plan and the timeline of the project. According to the plan four workshops and two training sessions will be organised in the framework of the PSS project from May 2014 till June 2015.

The project already has a Twitter account (https://twitter.com/ProSafeSport), and there will be soon an official homepage and a Facebook page created for those who are interested in the topic.

text: Mariann Bardocz-Bencsik, photos: Michael Trinker