Monday April 26th

Today the participants arrived at the Boerenstee in Woudenberg. The participants came from different countries: Spain, Italy, Austria, Poland, Romania, Belgium, Norway and the Netherlands. Everyone was surprised to stay in such a nice farm house in the countryside.

We started the program after having lunch together.

During the rest of the day there were introductions of different subjects as: Sport and Physical activity in the Netherlands, Youth in Action Program, Communities on the Move (CoM), Sport youth and Alcohol and WhoZnext. Interventions which stimulate youngsters to improve their active lifestyle. It was a interesting but busy day especially for the people who had made a long journey.

Tuesday April 27th

The next day we had a fresh wake up with some exercises in the morning. The weather was beautiful. Today we practiced with some intercultural learning. In groups we started with thinking of how to make more exchange of knowledge of sport and active lifestyle possible with the organizations of the different countries. What are the possibilities in Europe.

In the afternoon there was more information of the interventions. How does Austria deal with youngsters who drink too much and too often in a sport club? Austria developed an interesting intervention on this subject. There was more information of WhoZnext, the Dutch active youth participation in sport-project. The rest of the afternoon we had good fun doing some canoeing and hiking in the surroundings. We ended the day having diner together in the very nice city Utrecht in the middle of the country.

Wednesday April 28th

Baud the facilitator of the seminar started in the morning with some Tai Chi exercises. Another nice and relaxing beginning of the day. Today was the day to become concrete and to make future plans together. In two groups people were busy and very willing to create a plan. WhoZnext was an interesting intervention to work out and 5 countries agreed on doing more with this theme. So there will be a follow up later on. And also the network Key Players itself got attention. There will be raised a steering group and we are looking for cooperation with other networks.

In the afternoon we have visited a CoM intervention in s-Hertogenbosch, called “Doelbewust.” It is a good practice project. Youngsters between 10 and 14 who have a higher risk to become criminal, because of the area they live in, come together to play soccer and to talk about their problems and different themes they deal with while they are raising. Experienced youth (sport) workers who know the area by raising up in it themselves coach them. Wednesday evening we have evaluated the meeting. The participants were enthusiastic about the program. Hopefully the group and people are going to meet again. Our youngest participant has already done a request in Poland to organize a meeting for youngsters to talk about sport and stress.