Sport and hospitality, a youth support project that aims to include those who are cut off from the sporting circuits

ROME – Is called Sports power and is a youth empowerment project focused on the concepts of leadership positive and youthful protagonism, through sports practice, aimed at young people aged 6 to 17 years. It was selected by With the children in the context of Fund for the fight against child educational poverty and co-financed by Enel Heartthe non-profit organization of the EnelA Group at the starting blocks Sports power, the innovative youth support project that aims to include young people cut off from sports circuits and to create positive role models among adolescents through sports practice. The project, lasting 36 months, inspired by the intervention model of Sports Without Borders (SSF), strategically expands the educational offer of the non-profit organization and enhances the attitudes and abilities of the girls and boys involved, starting from the concept of educational equality.

Interventions in Rome, Naples, Bari and Domusnovas (Cagliari). The intervention, which will take place in four cities – Rome, Naples, Bari and Domusnovas (Cagliari) has very precise objectives that start from the fight against inequalities and child educational poverty and aim to offer learning opportunities to children and adolescents, with particular attention to those who are in a condition of disadvantage and socio-economic vulnerability. In the certainty that talents and potential reside in every minor, the project aims to encourage the acquisition of skills for strengthening basic skills, development of interests, awareness of one’s aptitudes, as well as, obviously, guaranteeing access to sport as a fundamental right.

The territorial solidarity network. Through a territorial solidarity network made up of all those who participate responsibly in the growth of minors, Sports power aims to promote an improvement in the health, physical and psychological well-being of the minors taken care of and involved in sports-educational activities. After an initial period of training and identification of possible beneficiaries, the local solidarity sports network will be activated and local teams will be set up. At that point, 125 minors in conditions of socio-economic disadvantage will be included in socio-educational programs with a sporting vocation (50 in Rome, 50 in Naples and 25 between Bari and Domusnovas).

True design innovation. Finally – and this is the real design innovation – groups of adolescents under the age of 18 will be formed, real sports agents, young bearers of values ​​linked to positive models of individual and group growth, learned through sport. They will be recruited in the 4 chosen cities. They will become actors of change and will be carefully trained, to be involved in awareness-raising activities, territorial animation and care for the little ones. “Over the years – explains Alessandro Tappa, president of Sports Without Borders – we realized how important it is for our kids, once they have developed their own sporting and social aptitude and experienced the great driving force of sport in life”.

Personal experience as a shared value. The particularity of the project Sports power is making personal experience a shared value: “the older kids become sports agents, educators of the younger ones, who can therefore experience a growth path together with those who have already done so”, says Filippo Rodriguez, Managing Director of Enel Heartwhich supports the initiative in collaboration with the social enterprise With the childrenand disburses the economic contribution to the extent of 50% of the total budget amount. Enel Heart has been working alongside the organizations of the for years Third sector rooted in the territory, capable of creating shared value and guaranteeing social cohesion and the sustainability of the initiatives over time. Sports Without Borders has contributed by building a network of sports and social-health collaborations in each city of the project, following its own intervention model