Meet Virginia !
Volunteer at Equality, in Padova.
While being a volunteer of the European Solidarity Corps in Rovigo, Virginia put in place her own initiative of solidarity : Ultimate Freesbee
“The unaccompanied foreign minor boys and girls hosted by the association where I do my ESC project have done an Ultimate freesbee training with the sports association of Padua, thanks to which they have learned this sport, learned the rules, trained together and then at the end of the course have taken part in a small tournament together with other players. My goals were for these young people to be able to go out of the community, do some sports in the open air, which is very rare for them, be together, get to know each other better and get to know other people through sports.
In addition to the very important aspect of sociability and integration with other Italian and other cultural kids, which for them is already a very important result since they normally live isolated and most of the time in a community, I think that ultimate freesbee has brought an additional value compared to other sports. In fact, in this game there is no referee but the players themselves who evaluate the correctness of their actions, thus learning to follow the rules beyond victory or defeat but to have an opportunity to have fun and live together. These aspects are extremely important for these very young kids with very difficult backgrounds. In addition, boys and girls from very different cultures participated who in some cases did not have good relationships with each other, or who were not used to mixed sports, learning to respect each other and to play together as a team.“
This initiative was supported along the CLIC project. C.L.I.C. for “Coordinating Locally in order to Increase More Changes with the European solidarity Corps” is a cooperation partnership we participate in with 9 other like-minded organisations from 9 European countries. Together, we want to increase the impact and the visibility of the European Solidarity Corps in our communities, while providing young people with a strong educational value along their volunteering projects.