ISCA seminar in Brazil tackles “The challenge of moving people” in Latin America

Posted December 8, 2016

Article by Monika Resetar, ISCA

This week ISCA’s member and partner SESC from Sao Paulo is hosting an international seminar “The challenge of moving people” with more than 200 participants from Brazil, 25 from other Latin American countries and guests from Europe. ISCA President Mogens Kirkeby opened the seminar on 7 December and it will close on 10 December.

“The challenge of moving people” seminar is gathering these important stakeholders, partners and sport managers to exchange experiences, to discuss the management and occupation of public spaces for physical exercise and sport and how to increase the number of physically active people. The seminar is being held to share and build on the result of ISCA’s Youth on the MOVE project, which has been completed this year.

Among the interactive workshops and presentations, the Youth on the MOVE (YOTM) project participants will have opportunity to share their experiences in organising an event or project in their own local community using the knowledge they gained throughout the online and offline training. From Europe, Charlene Attard (Malta) and Shane O’Donnell (Ireland) will present their projects together with participants from Latin America: Raúl Bernaola (Peru), Luis Carlos Baracaldo Prieto (Colombia), Jessyca Rodrigues Lopes and Amanda Sousa do Nascimento (both from Brazil). This will be the first time for the youngsters from both continents to finally meet in person and exchange experiences, compare different realities in Europe and Latin America and establish connection for possible future cooperation in the field of sport for all.

Youth on the MOVE’s Latin American participants organised events under the MOVE Brasil campaign, which was established in 2012, and has now expanded to include other Latin American countries. Its original aim was to promote sport and physical activity and increase the number of active Brazilians and increased its reach by being a good example of collaboration between institutions, companies, groups and people. Inspired by ISCA’s NowWeMOVE campaign in Europe, MOVE Brasil is now also conquering Latin American continent with various activation across 11 countries, in particular the #SemanaMUÉVELA (Latin American MOVE Week), which happened from 19 to 27 November 2016.

Brazil has been the host of many big sports events in the last few years, such as the Olympics, Paralympics and World Cup in football and sport has been widely discussed from various angles, including both elite and mass participation. The MOVE Brasil campaign in coming to an end this year and a reflection on what has been done, what the effects of campaign were and how to continue is needed to make further steps to promote sport for all, not only in Brasil, but in the rest of the Latin American countries.

“The challenge of moving people” seminar programme includes several ISCA representatives. Aside from President Mogens Kirkeby, both of ISCA's Vice Presidents, Maria Luiza Souza Dias and Toni Llopp, Executive Committee member Jakub Kalinowski, and Charlene and Shane, the two youth representatives that were selected by the YOTM team to present EU activities, all gave presentations.

You can find more information about the conference here: http://movebrasil.org.br/blog/seminario-internacional-move-brasil.aspx (in Portuguese)