Youth exchange: Sport for better mental health

Within the project “For Unlimited Energy Levels – Empowerment through Sport (FUEL)” in the period from July 11-18 in Bucharest, Romania, 8 participants (Simona Stancheva, Dona Stancheva, Mila Kjurchinska, Uran Ramadani, Egzon Durmishi, Medina Babacic, Simona Petkoska, Blagica Smilkova) nominated by ARNO participated in a youth exchange. A total of 37 participants from 5 countries had the opportunity to experience how sports can positively affect mental health. People who actively play sports and people who are not sportsmen and spend most of their time on the Internet took part. At this exchange, in addition to all the physical challenges, the participants also set their goals, talked about their idols, debated on topics that are important in sports, and created creative videos that challenged people who don’t do sports to start leading a sports life.

The young people who participated in this exchange had the opportunity through fun, sports, and socializing with different cultures to understand how sports are fun and good, and how much they help, especially for better mental health. Through an interesting program created by the partners, the participants had fun, acquired basic techniques for self-defense, they demonstrated their physical abilities. The participants were given the opportunity to lead part of the activities by themselves, so some of them held their own warm-ups, training, Zumba, various mini-games, etc.

“It was a great pleasure to be part of this exchange where each participant and leader brought additional motivation and inspiration to each activity. One could feel the competitive spirit in each of the participants, but also the desire to socialize and create memories and moments that remain forever. The participants had the opportunity to develop their creative side through some of the activities in the program. Such activity was the task “Invent your game”. Mixed in teams from different countries, the young people had the task of coming up with a game that they would all play together at the end. Each team was assigned a  “mystery box” with 3 items in it that were to be used in the creation of a new game.”– said Simona, the group leader of the Macedonian team.

For Unlimited Energy Levels – Empowerment through Sport (FUEL) is a project co-financed by the Erasmus + program of the European Union and organized by Kyodai Sports Club Association (Romania) together with partners: ARNO (S. Macedonia), Neomenioi (Greece), Comune di Prato (Italy) and KEY – Innovation in Culture Education and Youth (Cyprus).