Work for a Cause, Serve for Sport - W4C-S4S

The goal of the Work for a cause, serve for sport (W4C-S4S) project is to educate and equip volunteers for participating in the organisation of national and international sporting events.



Sports and the physical activity sector relies heavily on volunteers to ensure that activities and events take place and are enjoyed. Being a volunteer enables individuals to be part of the environment and benefit without necessarily taking part in an activity. For providers, having a diverse volunteer workforce of different ages, ethnicities and impairments ensures a wider range of experience and knowledge.

Volunteering is promoted as one of the best examples of how individuals can make a meaningful contribution to civil society with volunteering seen as an important expression of citizenship and fundamental to democracy. 



With the valuable contribution volunteers bring to society being more and more recognised, this project aims to assist with the education and preparation of volunteers across Europe, while also equipping them to assist people with disabilities at sporting events, thus fostering social inclusion, equal opportunities in sport.

On the 30th of March 2021, partners of the project W4C-S4S met online to officially kick-off the two-year initiative. This first meeting allowed all partners to virtually meet and introduce themselves to each other, before the project’s aims, objectives, outcomes and activities were presented in depth by the project coordinators.

On 5 November 2021, and again taking into consideration the International Volunteer Day, an international survey on volunteering was launched one month prior to this celebration. Any volunteer and any organisation/institution who is engaged in organising sports events could answer it. 

On 21 January 2022, partners of the project met online to discuss the project findings so far, and start planning ahead. Partners also defined the educational content of the programme, which was made publicly available after it. 

On the 3rd and 4th of March 2022, a two-day hybrid transnational project meeting was held in Almussafes, Spain. During the first day of the meeting, participants discussed the results of the survey launched in November last year and reviewed good practice examples, gathered by the partner organisations, as well as shared ideas and exchanged views on creating an online course that will help prepare future volunteers for various sporting events. The second day was mainly devoted to project management and discussion of the future steps of the project.
On June 4th and 5th, the City of Zagreb organised a project activity promoting volunteering. This multiplier event was held at the Cultural Information Center in the city centre of Zagreb. On June 19th, Slovenian partners of the project met in Novo Mesto, to promote the project and volunteering in general. The promotion of volunteering was done in form of sharing leaflets to volunteers, participants and spectators, as well as through individual discussions. On June 25th, the Muncipality of Almussafes also organised a multiplier event in which the project was presented. 

On July 6 and 7, partners of the project gathered for a two-day meeting in Thessaloniki, Greece, hosted and held in the premises of Social Innovation & Cohesion Institute – Fifty Fitfty. A team-building activity, multiple presentations and a reflection discussion were the main topics.

On November 23, in the City Hall of Municipality of Ljubljana, European University Sports Association (EUSA), EUSA Institute and Association for Development of Voluntary Work in Novo Mesto (DRPDNM) organised a seminar on volunteering in sport. The event was organised within the framework of the W4C - S4S project.

Partners of the Erasmus+ project Work for a cause, serve for sport on volunteering and inclusion in sport met for the final 5th transnational project meeting and multiplier sport event in Zagreb, Croatia, that took place on 2-3 of December 2022.

The main objectives of the project, such as strengthening the capacity of volunteers to participate in sport events/competitions, while increasing the number of volunteers educated to support sports events/competitions for persons with and without disabilities, promoting volunteering in a specifically sporting context, the opportunity to facilitate accessibility of volunteer services for organizers of sport events by developing an international Sports Volunteer Application and strengthening the capacity of organizers of sports events for recruitment of volunteers and on volunteer management, were completed with good results and with good experience.

The City of Zagreb (CRO) was the co-ordinator of this project, supported by partners the Municipality of Almussafes (ESP), Society for the Development of Voluntary Work Novo Mesto (SLO), Institute for Social Innovation and Cohesion (GRE), GEA - Social Cooperative Society (ITA) and the EUSA Institute (SLO). The two-year project is funded by the Erasmus+ Programme of the European Union.

For more information, please see www.eusportvolunteers.com.