• SANTE kick-off meeting
• European Sport-for-All Top Leader meeting
• PATHE conference 2010
• Sport and Cultures in Dialogue
• Women in sport
• Council of Europe youth sector undergoes heavy budget cuts
• UN hopes to put sport higher on the agenda
• Action week against racism
• ISCA Executive Committee meeting 2010
• The European Civil Society House
• International Badminton Youth Camp
• UFOLEP Sport & Environment training
• Exercises for parents and children
• Global Dialogue is coming to Slovenia
• Velo-city 2010
• Bikeability in Iceland
• Integration through sports
• Join ISCA's facebook fanpage

The ISCA coordinated SANTE - Sport Action Network of Europe project has started!

SANTE partners partook in a kick-off seminar in Copenhagen, where activities under this Europe wide initiative were identified and prioritized. A substantial number of project exchanges between the 16 SANTE partners were mapped in Copenhagen, and will be supplemented by comprehensive thematic seminars on key topics within the field of health promoting physical activity (HEPA).

SANTE sets out to promote HEPA on a European level with a starting point in sport organisations. Through SANTE, national and local sport organisation in Europe will be involved in networking and best practice exchange and the project pays special attention to establishing and promoting innovative cross-sector HEPA partnerships.

Also non-partners are welcome – indeed encouraged - to join activities under this project.

A SANTE web platform is being developed and more information can be obtained from Project Manager Anders Tharsgaard or Project Manager Saska Benedic Tomat.

Presidents and executive organizational leaders from 12 Sport for All organizations met in Copenhagen 6 of March 2010 to discuss the futures challenges for the grass-roots sport sector.

“The Sport for All organizations in Europe will play the major role for the future development of sport, physical activity and health. That vast majority of Europeans doing sport and physical activities are doing it for health, recreational or social purposes. Therefore our sector is central to providing recreational services to the Europeans as well as developing active civil societies", says ISCA Europe chair Filippo Fossati.

The presidents discussed in details three key issues for the Sport for All sector; finance, volunteers in sport and sport facilities.

Read more >>>.

Belgrade, Serbia 22–25 April 2010

You are invited to register by 5 April 2010 at the latest using the on-line registration on:

http://spreadsheets.google.com/viewform?formkey=dHc4S1FqZDBkbUowcmpuQU8xb3B3WHc6MA

With the PATHE project, Sport For All Organisations show commitment to involve themselves in health prevention and physical activity promotion. They increase their capacity to develop health promotion and prevention activities, goal-oriented health enhancing physical activity programmes and motivation to engage health and physical activity experts.

The PATHE conference 2010 will provide a platform for presenting new knowledge and for exchanging experience, not only among the 20partner organisations in the PATHE project, but also towards other interested organisations. The recurring theme of the conference will be cross-cutting partnerships, demonstrating the value of working together across sectors to engage citizens in health-enhancing physical activity.

The PATHE Conference will also give recommendations for future decisons and input to common strategies to increase the activity level of EU population All conclusions will be included in the PATHE Declaration which will be designed, , debated and adopted during the Conference.

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With the project “Sport and Cultures in Dialogue” ISCA (International Sport and Culture Association), CESS (European Confederation sport and Health) and 10 national sport organizations from 10 European countries set out to facilitate a direct and trans-national dialogue between citizens in existing EU member countries and in 3 candidate/potential candidate countries in South East Europe - Macedonia, Albania and Croatia - focusing on the role that sport and sport organizations can play in developing strong civil societies.

The main activities of the project include organization of 3 local Citizens’ Panels in Macedonia, Albania and Croatia and a Sport Citizens’ Forum to be held in Slovenia.

The Sport and Culture project receives support of the “Europe for Citizens” programme of the European Union.

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From April 12-14 ISCA will together with the University of Copenhagen, Department of Exercise and Sport Sciences (IFI) co-host the first round table under a project financed by the European Commission’s Sport Unit. The project, OLYMPIA - Roadmap for equality between women and men, is led by the Italian organisation UISP (Unione Italiana Sport Per tutti) and is designed to drive the gender equality agenda forward by addressing the under-representation of women in sport.

The project has a special focus on how to improve women's access to decision-making positions in sport, and will look into areas such as eradication of all forms of gender-based violence, elimination of gender stereotypes and promotion of gender equality in external and development policies.

Interested parties are welcome to contact the ISCA secretariat for more information about the arrangement.

Project Manager - Anders Tharsgaard  E-mail: at@isca-web.org Tel: +45 4076 2937

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The Council of Europe’s new Secretary General Thorbjørn Jagland emphasises the need for an institutional reform in order to seize a historic opportunity to advance the European project on the basis of deep security. On the base of his reform ambition Mr Jagland asked all Council of Europe sectors including the Youth Sector to cut costs and to engage in a budget decrease of 7% for 2011.

ISCA backs the Secretary Generals assessment of an institutional reform and underlines the innovation potentials of such a reform process. Also, ISCA reminds that both the field of Youth, Sport and Culture contribute strongly to the furthering of the Council of Europe’s core values and that these three fields are greatly capable to build bridges between institutions and the citizens in Europe. In this respect the results produced over the past many years in the youth field are outstanding and are still the benchmark in European youth work.

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The United Nations have launched a 'one stop shop' in the field of sport policy, hoping to boost interest across its own agencies and coordinate partnerships on sport and development beyond UN circles.

The UN office on Sport for Development and Peace (UNOSDP) last week launched a new website gathering information on why and how the UN family and its member states use sport and physical education to create positive social change worldwide.

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Under the slogan of "Enjoy Diversity" the campaign unites tens of thousands activists, from Portugal to Russia and from Iceland to Cyprus, to claim the streets and celebrate diversity.

European-wide Action Week Against Racism 13-21 March 2010

• NGOs from 48 different European countries mobilise against Racism - more than 235 actions are planned in Europe's largest anti-racism campaign.
• In the European-wide Action Week Against Racism, around 21st March, hundreds of grass-roots organisations from all over Europe join forces and come into action against racism, xenophobia, right-wing extremism and related discrimination.
• The activities are coordinated by the Amsterdam based secretariat of UNITED for Intercultural Action - the European Network against Nationalism, Racism, Fascism and in Support of Migrants and Refugees.

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Would you like a funny summer vacation in Denmark?

- International ISCA youth camp in Denmark 1. - 5. August 2010

Enjoy an eventful week where you get the opportunity to develop yourself into a better badminton player and meet new friends from Denmark and other European countries.

We have invited players from Scotland, France, Germany, Iceland, Faroe Islands and other countries. Your badminton technique will be improved and you will participate in a lot of funny activities at the wonderful sport facilities in Vingstedcentret, www.vingstedcentret.dk. For instance you will be playing beach volley, swimming in the pool, watching movies etc.

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This training will determine ISCA's strategy on the thematic of “sport and environment”. In order to do so, four of the five seminar days will be dedicated on presenting “sustainable development” issues when it comes to sports as well as some of the answers that are already being implemented.

The seminar will take place on Monday 17th to Friday 21st May 2010 in Paris (France) at the headquarter of the seminar host UFOLEP and is addressed to project manager of the sports organization, leaders of organizations or sports federations, sport event organizers.

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From the 9-11 April 2010, the Czech Sokol Organization organizes an international seminar based on exercises for parents and children. The Seminar will take place at the headquarter of Sokol in the middle of Prague and targets instructors working with parents and kids, leaders of the sports organizations intending to introduce or enhance this type of exercises in their organizations.

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Global Dialogue, the Youth Training on Intercultural Dialogue and Cooperation, supported by Council of Europe, will gather young leaders from different European countries, from 21-27 June in the capital of Slovenia. The event will be hosted by Sports Union of Slovenia in cooperation with ISCA.

Through interesting methods of non-formal education, young people will discuss about relevant social topics in the field of sport for all and youth policy.

SUS and ISCA are looking for active and motivated young people between the 18-30 years and  will include: networking, development of an action plan, expert presentations, participant-led workshops, networking sessions and a session employing Open Space Technology. That will be your week. Join us!

If you are interested in the training participation, write to: ta@isca-web.org.

More details coming soon.

“I look forward to sharing New York City’s cycling success story with a global audience, and the common work U.S. cities have begun to implement bike-friendly streets.

I also welcome the opportunity to learn from the international cycling experts that will gather at Velo City Global. And everyone will benefit from the inspiration provided by Copenhagen’s remarkable cycling culture, infrastructure, and sheer volume of riders!”, says Janette Sadik-Khan, City of New York, Speaker at Velo-city Global 2010.

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Interesting bikeability workcamp with SEEDS where participant have the chance to support cycling trips with school kids to the Blue Mountains. The same project is run at different dates, so you can select according to the suitable dates.

SEEDS volunteers will be taking part in two days cycling tours with school pupils from 9th and 10th grade to Bláfjöll (the Blue Mountains range), located 35 km from Reykjavík. In each week there will be two trips back and forth.

Volunteers will visit the schools before the trips and assist the participants to assess and adjust their bicycles, check their helmets, adjust the gears and breaks and talk about cycling to the pupils. School teachers, members of the Icelandic mountain cycling club and SEEDS volunteers will lead the groups from the schools in Reykjavík to Bláfjöll.
For further information and registration please see the links below:

15. - 29. May: http://www.seedsiceland.org/volunteer-workcamps-iceland-en-190.html
29. May - 12. June: http://www.seedsiceland.org/volunteer-workcamps-iceland-en-188.html

From 18^th-24^th of February, Context hosted an international workshop with the theme “Integration through sports-intercultural sports” supported by the Grundtvig programme which is a part of the Lifelong Learning Programme of European Commission.

The workshop enabled 16 young leaders from different European countries to reflect their interests, share their experiences and to learn about many different kinds of modules and methods that they can use in their own country or on international level for integration.

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Join ISCA's fanpage on Facebook and be the first to receive news updates, events, videos and pictures related to our activities in Sport, Culture and Youth.

Reconnect and network with participants from past & future events and inspire the sport political agenda through your online participation.

Join the ISCA Fanpage >>>.