EU Projects
The Sport Opens School (SOS) project continued with the second transnational meeting hosted by the Bacău County School Inspectorate in Romania on 25-26 September ,2019. The SOS project is co-financed by the Erasmus + program of the European Union to achieve the goal of develop an innovative teaching method for high school physical education teachers and then implement this new model in the 4 partner schools.
CUS Padova, project coordinator, and all partners (Italian National Olympic Committee – Italy; Bacău-Romania School Inspectorate; Instituto N.ª Sra da Encarnação – Ensino Cooperative, Benedita – Portugal; Newton Higher Education Institute – Pertini – Italy; Budapest VI. Kerületi Kölcse y Ferenc Gimnázium – Hungary; and European Athlete as Student network – Malta) met to discuss the drafting of the new teaching module, based on the literature review and research developed by the project team; to check the project website before publication; and to share information on the next training activity.
The entire project team is now focused on organizing the 3-day training activity that will take place next December at the CUS Padova facilities. On this occasion, high school physical education teachers will participate in training on the new physical education teaching method, addressing the 3 main subjects of the module: Physical activity and health; Fairplay and integrity; Skills for life (life skills) and for employability.
The partners from the DONA project met September 26 and 27 in Amsterdam for training meeting. The project targets female volleyball athletes between 12-20 years old, covering the several important development stages including major changes on academic, athletic, psychological, social and professional levels. EAS was represented by Prof. Mojca Doupona-Topic.
At the meeting partners elaborated Pilot Programme which was very good prepaired by De SportMaatschappij Foundation. Later this year, 250 athletes will be directly involved in the pilot program, through the 4 participating sports clubs.
Partners also talked about the selection of the ambassadors. Each club selected two such persons. Ambassadors are persons who are, or have been, active within the club and have experience with a dual career or with facing difficult transitions. They are good with younger athletes and like to help them with possible struggles.
INFORMATION about DONA
DONA is based on the ERASMUS+ Collaborative Partnership program of EU. It is coordinated by the Associació Esportiva Carles Vallbona (Spain) and involves the Malta Volleyball Association (Malta), the Scuola di Pallavolo Anderlini Soc. Coop. Sociale SD (Italy), the Associação Aventura com Carisma – Leixoes Sport Club (Portugal), Istres Provence Volleyball (France), the De SportMaatschappij Foundation (Netherlands), the University of Ljubljana (Slovenia), and the European Athlete as Student (EAS) Dual Career Network (Malta).
DONA aims to:
- decrease female athletes’ dropout from sport clubs;
- prepare athletes from an early age for the different transition periods ahead with developing the needed skills and competences;
- increase the number of professional and elite female volleyball players by retaining talents at clubs and supporting their DC development;
- make young athletes and their families aware that it is possible to aim for both educational and sports career;
- help them finding the right balance between sports and education with providing them the needed support services;
- prepare these athletes for their upcoming challenge to be successful in the change from elite sport to labour market – for the “career after the career”.
On September 12-14, 2019 the Italian Olympic Committee (CONI) hosted in Rome the 4th meeting of the EMPATIA project, co-funded by the European Union’s Erasmus Sport programme and coordinated by the University of Ljubljana.
To structure of the on-line dual career parenting educational programme in light of the evidence and eminence findings on dual career parents, Matteo Bovis (CONI, ITA), Antonio Tessitore and Masar Gjaka (University of Rome Foro Italico, ITA), Anne Templet, Jean-Luc Patoret (INSEP, FRA), Ciaran MacDonncha, Gary Ryan, and Giles Warrington (University of Limerick, IRE), Carlos Goncalves (University of Coimbra, POR), Ana Rolo and Rute Costa (Ginásio Clube Figueirense, POR) Laura Capranica (EAS, MLT), Andrej Pisl (EUSA Institute, SLO), and Mojca Doupona and Kinga Varga (University of Ljubljana, SLO) engaged in a fruitful discussion.
The EMPATIA project, will last till December 2020 and Laura Capranica will present its progress at the 2019 EAS Conference to be held in Falun, Sweden, on September 18-20, 2019.
In creating the www.icdc.eu pilot program not only scientific sources were consulted. Best practices in Dual Career have also been researched. To identify the best practices in Dual Career, work visits have been paid to Olympic Committees, elite sport centers, elite sport clubs, schools / universities and other institutes. At all these organisations key players (amongst others managers, coaches, Dual Career support providers, athletes, etc.) have been asked their opinion on effective Dual Career support in sport clubs.
The project “Innovative Clubs for Dual Careers” focuses on developing optimal conditions for Dual Career and improve the Dual Career awareness at sports clubs, good coordination regarding education and sports clubs, developing a Dual Career team with specialists and corresponding Dual Career support. These are the important pillars of the project and in the study we have focused on successful practical examples that focus on the aspects of these pillars. Given the fact that the Dual Career concept is not always firmly anchored in sports clubs, inspiration was deliberately sought in other domains and organizations as well. The starting point has always been that a working method or structure can easily be integrated into the practice of a sports club.
The 4-pillar scheme shows the pillars underlying this project and therefore also the study. Each pillar is further explained in a chapter in this guidebook. For each pillar, relevant scientific insights are discussed and the best practices that form the basis of the pilot programme and can inspire more sports clubs to professionalize their Dual Career policy are explained. Each building block in each pillar represents a paragraph of that chapter. Each chapter concludes with a best practice in which the most important elements of the pillar are highlighted in ‘In the spotlight’. These highlighted best pratices together form the Champions League for sports organisations in Dual Career!
On Jun 27-til 28 2019 the second international partner meeting took place in Murcia. This meeting was attended by representatives of the University of Latvia (Latvia), the project’s lead partner, while the consortium of partners consists of Alexandru Ioan Cuza University (Romania), Catolica San Antonio de Murcia University (Spain), Coimbra University (Portugal), University degli Studi G. d’Annunzio Chieti – Pescara (Italy) and The European Athlete as Student (Malta).
On behalf of EAS Laura Capranica (EAS President, University of Rome Foro Italico) and ExCom Member Ilvis Abelkalns (University of Latvia) participated.
To contribute to the development of a dual career culture in Europe, the project aims to collect and systematize policies and best practices to develop Dual Career Guidelines and Methodologies for higher education institutions (HEI).
At the meeting the activities in the previous stage of the project were was carried out. The group discussed the results of the focus groups and of the high-performance athletes, and analyzed the questionnaires. The project team got acquainted with the UCAM sports infrastructure.
The project will last for 2 years and is co-funded by the European Union’s Erasmus Sport program
Multiplier Sports Event “USI Championships” took place 25 May in Salzburg. About 200 participants enjoyed numerous disciplines (e.g. Beach Volleyball, Basketball, Football, Run2Hero parkour) and a evening celebration.
At the AMiD info point, AMiD was promoted and findings shared with athletes, students, and Dual Career interested people. We talked with with many people about Dual Careers, the AMiD project, disseminated information, activities, and results. We collected 65 signatures from participants supporting the AMiD project.
On May 7, 2019 the EAS President Laura Capranica participated to the Bureau of the EPAS Consultative Committee of the Council of Europe (Chair Jens Sejer Andersen, Play the Game; Carlos Cardoso, ENGSO; Paulina Tomczyk, EU Athletes; Annette Wachter, EGLSF; Michael Trinker, EPAS).
It was organized in Paris in preparation of the 13th meeting of the Enlarged Partial Agreement on Sport (EPAS) Governing Board (joint meeting with the EPAS Consultative Committee) of the Council of Europeto be held in Strasbourg next June 5-6, 2019.
During the meeting, the aims and activities the EU-funded projects AMID, Ed-Media, EMPATIA, More Than Gold, SoS, Starting 11 have been disseminated.
REG. NUMBER: Voluntary Organisation registration VO/1270
PIC NUMBER: 913459865
Email: info@dualcareer.eu