Research & development projects
Sport to Treat War Trauma
(SPORT2TREAT)
The project Sport2Treat, aims to conceptualize the big range of stimuli that artistic sports activities can offer to forcibly displaced people, due to the war in Ukraine, supporting their skills-development and psychosocial empowerment. The proposed approach aims also to support the host country, in this case the sport sector in Greece, to welcome refugees and engage Ukrainian children (min 30) in artistic sport activities. Moreover, a professional training course will be developed for capacity building in Ukrainian sport staff (min 20) who have relocated in Greece, and also, a digital employment tool will be created to assist them in finding suitable employment opportunities in the artistic sport sector. The immediate outcome of the project’s pilot scheme (Artistic Sports 4ALL Camp) is offering refugee children a sport context where they feel secure and can access sport, together with addressing psychological trauma. Sport inclusion of refugees will be achieved by implementing 3 artistic sports programs, during a summer camp, that will correspond to children’s learning, social and emotional needs. Project activities will support the target group to feel safe and to be able to copy with separation, loss, grief, and trauma, and also, restore self-awareness, self-control, and interpersonal skills, while communicate with others, including nonrefugees and feeling a sense of belonging. We will produce twelve deliverables, such as, awareness raising campaign, social media accounts, online educational courses, training programs, web-based applications and more.
Aquatic Sport for adressing learning difficulties
(SPORT for LEARNING)
This project will introduce an innovative exercise program in the water for developing the four domains of learning (the physical, the cognitive, the social and the affective) in children who face learning difficulties. Project activities will conceptualize the topic “Sport for Learning (S4L)” and create a well-defined exercise method, the “Aquatic Literacy Method” for improving the basic learning skills in children through water activities. A professional training course will give the opportunity in aquatic professionals (n=40) to develop expertise in running Aquatic Literacy Programs in sport clubs, summer camps, schools and rehabilitation centres. Two pilot schemes will promote participation in aquatic physical activity in children with learning difficulties, in Cyprus and Greece, implementing the new exercise method.
Participants will increase their physical and cognitive-perceptual ability (e.g., basic swimming skills, working memory, attention, sensory adaptation, visuo-spatial ability, bilateral coordination, etc) and psychosocial skills. The new method will offer advancements to the existing swimming training programs by developing innovative exercise methods and educational tools for coaches such as, a green equipment kit with waterproof objects (i.e., sinking objects, waterproof cards with letters/numbers/shapes, small-coloured balls, underwater writing slate, etc).
Aquatic Sport for adressing learning difficulties
(SPORT for LEARNING)
This project will introduce an innovative exercise program in the water for developing the four domains of learning (the physical, the cognitive, the social and the affective) in children who face learning difficulties. Project activities will conceptualize the topic “Sport for Learning (S4L)” and create a well-defined exercise method, the “Aquatic Literacy Method” for improving the basic learning skills in children through water activities. A professional training course will give the opportunity in aquatic professionals (n=40) to develop expertise in running Aquatic Literacy Programs in sport clubs, summer camps, schools and rehabilitation centres. Two pilot schemes will promote participation in aquatic physical activity in children with learning difficulties, in Cyprus and Greece, implementing the new exercise method.
Participants will increase their physical and cognitive-perceptual ability (e.g., basic swimming skills, working memory, attention, sensory adaptation, visuo-spatial ability, bilateral coordination, etc) and psychosocial skills. The new method will offer advancements to the existing swimming training programs by developing innovative exercise methods and educational tools for coaches such as, a green equipment kit with waterproof objects (i.e., sinking objects, waterproof cards with letters/numbers/shapes, small-coloured balls, underwater writing slate, etc).
Aquatic Hubs
The primary focus of the project is to create the first Aquatic Hub in Elafonisos, a remote area in Greece, in order to promote participation in aquatic exercise lessons in the local community. The Aquatic Hub aims to work as an eco-system for making organized aquatic physical activity accessible to children and adolescents with fewer opportunities excluded from mainstream swimming and water safety programs. Elafonisos is a small island of fishermen and youths have easy access in the sea environment but they lack of basic swimming skills and water safety knowledge. Project activities will include educational schemes for the local children and adolescents in order to develop theoretical knowledge about health-enhancing physical activity in the water and also practical sessions in the sea environment for developing aquatic skills, safety and water play. The Aquatic Hub will also work as knowledge exchange center for sport professionals (i.e., coaches, physical educators, youth-development experts, sport psychologists, sport managers) by offering the course “Training the Trainers” for developing new professional skills on how to manage the Aquatic Hub in Elafonisos ensuring the sustainability of project outcomes.
Sport Orbit through 26 Villages
(SPORTO -26V)
This project will introduce a new sport approach, named Sport Orbit, which reflects the big range of stimuli that sport activities can offer to individuals who live in rural areas. The target group is children and adolescents (n=50) characterized by a weak socio-economic background who are confronted daily with various manifestations of poverty, geographical challenges and social exclusion. Due to these barriers children and adolescents don’t have the opportunities to participate in regular sport activities and gain the benefits of sport exercise. We will design and implement the Sport Orbit Program combining different sport experiences, such as, individual sport experience –team sport experience – water sport experience - artistic sport experience- family sport experience. Thus, in our exercise program we will use different sports, trail running, dance, basketball, water polo, and pétanque and orienteering. We will conduct also, a professional training course for increasing the managerial and interpersonal competencies in local policy makers and sport staff, from the nearest cities, to be able to design, deliver and maintain sport development programs in the target area. We will produce ten deliverables, such as, HEPA awareness raising campaign, the HEPA online educational course, Sport Orbit training program, the professional course, a family sport event.