More than 20Â 000 young Maltese will participate in the European initiative
Malta encourages better physical activity and health to everyone by joining the European School Sport Day. The initiative will be held on 30 September 2016 and will invite 150 schools to participate in different kind of traditional games and movement. The local organiser of the initiative Sport Malta has invited the Minister of Education and Employment Mr. Evarist Bartolo and the Parliamentary Secretary for Research, Innovation, Youth and Sport Mr. Chris Agius to support the initiative and to join many high-profile athletes and EWOS Ambassadors at the flagship event at Cottonera Sports Complex.
European School Sport Day is part of NowWeMOVE campaign, developed by a consortium of European umbrella organizations and aims to promote health and wellbeing for lifelong learning and to develop social competences among students through fun and meaningful experience. In Malta the initiative is supported by Kristal Water represented by GSD Marketing Ltd.
Chris Agius, Parliamentary Secretary for Research, Innovation, Youth and Sports said that children should be exposed to various activities that contribute to the growth of their agility, balance and coordination that form the basis of all sports disciplines. Moreover sports activities should be made attractive to children so that they do not view sports as an obligation but rather as an endeavour that they enjoy. He stated that his wish is to see that such activities continue to entice children towards sport and cultivate a passion towards an active lifestyle. He sustained that this is indeed a challenge to organise such an activity during the first scholastic week but he believes that such an initiative gives its due importance to physical education.
âWe believe that the schools should be the main focal point where the true value of grassroots sport is being delivered and that is why we have invited all schools not only to join the event, but to participate in the dynamic sport programme, organized by us for the children during entire dayâ, Mark Cutajar, Chief Executive of Sport Malta said.
Kevin Azzopardi, Education Officer for Physical Education stated that this is a unique occasion to unite state, private and church schools to promote together physical education as an enjoyable activity and not just to obtain competitive results in this field. The Ministry of Education has invested in sport facilities so that students have accessibility to sports and it is planned that more are to be developed in the coming months.
Sport Malta expects more than 20Â 000 young people to join the event using their localities – squares, gardens, alley ways, waterfronts, to play and be active. In order to involve as more participants as possible, the organizers of European Schools Sport Day has provided teachers and students with fresh ideas to plan and prepare their own school sport program outside classes. This useful toolkit is available on the official website of the initiative http://essd.nowwemove.com/.
About the NowWeMOVE campaign
NowWeMOVE is Europeâs largest bottom-up campaign of its kind promoting sport and physical activity. Launched in 2012 by ISCA, it brings stakeholders in the sport for all from a variety of sectors together to tackle the physical inactivity epidemic across Europe. The cross-sector vision of the campaign is to get â100 million more Europeans active in sport and physical activity by 2020.â The overall objectives of the campaign are to raise awareness of the benefits of sport and physical activity among European citizens; promote opportunities to be active in sport and physical activity; and enable sustainable and innovative capacity building for providers of physical activity initiatives through open-source solutions and advocacy.
For more information about NowWeMOVE campaign please visit http://nowwemove.com/