Door Out Sport GUIDE
Chapter 1
How to attract young people to sport?
As we stated, the major challenge connected to global health issues is the lack of physical activities and commitment to sport in population of young people. All this implies the lack of their motivation for it. This fact is what mostly influenced the approach that we have in the Manual.
WE FOCUSED ON THE FOLLOWING ASPECTS FOR MOTIVATING YOUNG PEOPLE:
OUTDOOR ACTIVITIES – By choosing the outdoors as a space for the activities we will present, we are matching to the preferences of young people who are interested more and more with the time of practicing sports in the open, as our research is suggesting. Outdoor activities are contributing to better mental and physical health of young people and if we want in incite youth participation in sport activities, we need to be responsive to trends and needs among young people. Furthermore, young generations are showing their interest in environmental issues and ecology more than previous generations did.
MULTISPORT ACTIVITIES – The multisport approach opens the possibility for us to approach to a bigger number of young people. They have different preferences in sport and combination of several of them gives us a better chance to hit their interests. We also expect that they will be intrigued by the approach since it is innovative and creative, both which resonates very good with the young audience. When we combine different sports it makes the activities we are offering more attractive to young people and they tend to find them very interesting. Many examples of combining different sports are described in a part of Manual where the methods are presented. Once you get self-confident with DOS approach you will start preparing your own methods that serve you best.
EDUCATION THROUGH AND IN SPORT – Young people want to learn in a new way. Non-formal education gives them this possibility. They are participating and learning, and this framework is applicable to learning through sport. Sport is a very good tool for gaining new knowledge and skills and we believe that by combining education and sport we will achieve to inspire young people to join the sport activities in larger numbers for getting new skills and knowledge and at the same time enhancing their physical and mental well-being. By gaining new skills and knowledge, young people will become empowered to actively contribute to development of their communities and society in general.
AWARENESS RISING CAMPAIGNS – Many of awareness rising campaigns are led through sport. Sport is attractive to young people, and they gladly participate in the awareness rising campaigns done through this media. We also explained in the Manual how you should do it to attract more young people in your work.
COMMUNICATION – We were looking for the best formula to approach to young people, and in part of the Manual in which we are talking about the communication we offered the tools and skills for including them by sending the right messages to make them interested in multisport outdoor activities. The explanation of benefits they will get is an important part of this. Once we motivate them through the social media to join, the chances are that many of them will engage and afterwards continue with sport activities.
The project “Door Out to more Sport for all” is co-funded by the European Union.