Search for European Projects

Do you Dance?
Start date: Aug 1, 2014, End date: Nov 30, 2014 PROJECT  FINISHED 

We’re an association that works daily with children and youth and nowadays we’ve been noticing a growing lack of participation of youth in programs regarding physical activity. The demanding pace of today's societies and its high dependency on technology propelled the individuals towards adopting a less active lifestyle, therefore increasing sedentarism rates throughout the last decades. Portugal has one of the highest sedentarism rates of all Europe. Despite being widely acepted that engaging in regular physical activity is an effective preventive measure for a variety of health risk factors across all age, gender, ethnic and socioeconomic subgroups, with a high impact on one's life quality, about 70% of Portugal's population is still sedentary, obese and with low physical ability. Being fully aware of this problematic, we decided to plan and organize an exchange that will help to raise awareness regarding this problematic and encourage youth to increase their physical activity levels. We decided to adopt dancing as the main focus of our exchange. Dancing envolves the individual as a whole, increasing his well-being as well as his activity levels. Our goals are to help youth to: - understand and assimilate the importance of physical exercise as a tool to improve one's day-to-day life; - discover the best way to fit in dancing in their daily routine, to fight stress and sedentarism; - realise that dancing helps them socialize and to overcome difficulties that might arise from their background, for example, low socioeconomic subgroups; - develop cultural knowledge and exchange different experiences through different dancing styles, characteristic of their partner's heritage; - be aware of the importance of their participation and involvement with local authorities, as a way to develop vital measures that meet their real needs. 5 groups of youngsters from different european countries will participate in this exchange which one composed by 4 young participants (2 boys and 2 girls in order to maintain an equality in genre) and 1 leader. During this exchange, the participants will be able to meet and try out diferent dance styles. At the end, a Flash Mob will be performed in Arcos de Valdevez. Throughtout the whole week, they will have the change to practice daily a routine for this Flash Mob, with local youngsters. The preparation and practises for the Flash Mob will encourage the exchange of experiences between the local youths and the participants. Therefore, all participants must engage a close contact with the local community. The activities of this interchange will be based on methods and techniques of formal and non formal education and the participants will be guided by a group of people responsible for the organization of the interchange as well as by their country leader. Several evaluation moments (individual and in groups) will take place during the exchange as to allow a better adaptation of the program to the participants needs and expectations and also to allow a follow up of the knowledge acquired throughout the program. In the end of the exchange the participants should be aware of the importance of physical activity for their well being in short and long term. They should realize that sedentarism is not only prejudicial for them but also to their country as countries with a higher rate of sedentarism have more health expenses due to problems related to obesity, cardiovascular diseases, cancer and so on. All the participants must be aware that dancing is a great exercise, as well as an important tool of social inclusion. There will be created a Facebook group, where they can exchange experiences and help us understand how this exchange affected their lives, specially when it comes to physical activity and if dancing became a main part of their daily routines. This online page will allow the partner organizations to keep in touch with each other at any time of day or night, creating an efective dialogue beetwen all of them. Each partner will be able to express their opinions and share good practices in the work made with and for youth. This permanent comunication will allow that, in the future, every partner can work together for the planning and organization of activities that fulfill the needs of the european youth.
Up2Europe Ads

Coordinator

Details

4 Partners Participants