From 9-15 of February, in Lisbon, 36 participants had the chance to attend the Training Course within the Youth Integrity Ambassadors Programme project, with the main goal of giving the skills and knowledge to the young representatives in order to become the future sports integrity ambassadors. 

All partner organisations had the chance to choose 6 youth representatives and 1 youth worker and give them the opportunity to attend this educational training course and get back home in the local communities with 7 sports integrity ambassadors, ready to share their new gained skills with their peers.

The first day of programme of the training course started on the 9th of February having the first part of the day fulfilled with teambuilding activities and different entertaining getting to know each other games.

Participants then had the chance to attend the first two educational sessions on the topic of Values in Sport given by representatives of the Lithuanian Union of Sport Federation – LSFS and on a workshop on Understanding Integrity led by Mr Paul Standaert, representative of the European Loteries and Panathlon International.

On the second day of the training the young ambassadors head more on the topic of integrity through the presented case studies and had the chance to get to know more about Inclusive leadership through the session given by Ms Jenni Hakkinen, Project manager of Special Olympics Europe Eurasia. These two sessions were interactive sessions where participants learned more about the practical implementation of integrity in sports as well as different important points in leading a inclusive project such as the skills you need to have to lead a team,

The young ambassadors then continued the day with a very useful Open Mic session and sharing personal stories of integrity, their opinion, their work, experience and meaningful examples of their everyday life and observations in their local communities. The day was then wrapped up with a highly competitive workout session, led by representative of the Organisation for Sports Education – OPES from Italy, Mr Alessio Matarazzo.

The next day, our young ambassadors continued their training with receiving more information on the topic of inclusion and accessibility, which bears a very important part in the implementation of their local activities. Through interactive role – play game and Unified Sport Basketball activitiy, representative from Special Olympics Europe Eurasia gave an impactful knowledge and practical examples of how to make your activities and events inclusive and welcoming to everyone.

Later in the training, representatives from the European University Sports Association (EUSA) Ms Hristina Hristova and Mr Jan Martin Jamnik, led an interactive role – play session on the topic of Media Integrity and Leadership, putting the participants in the role of journalist and interviewees with the purpose of better understanding the influence and role of media in integrity and sports in general.

The 5th day of the training course then started with the morning sessions being devoted to the brainstorming of the ideas for the local activities and the creating the communications part of the campaign.
This was powered by two practical sessions on How to turn your idea into reality, led by EUSA and OPES and How to create a Communications Campaign led by EUSA. These two sessions gave the participants more insight in the creation steps of the projects of the local activities, what are the goals of it, the timeline as well as the important steps in communicating about it, promoting it, and sharing the knowledge and message of integrity.

The last day and a half of this training was reserved as time for the participants to start brainstorming and creating the ideas of the potential local activities that they will do in their communities, as well as a space to get feedback, support and answers to any potential questions or dilemmas they have throughout the process. They also had the chance to present the first drafts of their ideas and to get feedback and advice from the coordinator representatives of the YIAP Project.

Besides the educational part, the participants enjoyed multiple sports activities and an amazing interactive orientation game.

The training ended up with an amazing reflection session, where the participants shared their gratitude and very positive feedback of the experience they had throughout the entire Training Course, being ready to go and share it with their communities on a local level. At this Training Course, EUSA team was consisted of 6 young representatives: Mr Pol Arnan, Ms Cristina Kenely, Ms Kinga Gaal, Ms Špela Amon, Mr Benjamin Petrovcic, Ms Awena Guiner, led by the youth workers Ms Hristina Hristova and Mr Jan Martin Jamnik. 

For more information about the Youth Integrity Ambassadors Programme, please see https://www.engso-education.eu/youth-integrity-ambassadors-programme/