From 22 to 24 February, the Push Project’s partners met in Budapest for the 3rd transnational meeting foreseen by the Work Package 2 of the Project to define how to test the Guidelines for designing and implementing sports activities that include Homeless People.
At the meeting leaded by Megallo Csoport each Partner explained to the other members of the consortium how the activities will be designed and carried out. At the end of the activities, specific questionnaires will be filled out by the social workers and trainers who will carry out the activities. Finally, partecipants will complete a questionnaire regarding their sporting experience and degree of satisfaction. Through this collection of data, the definitive version of the Guidelines for the use of sport as a tool for the social inclusion of homeless people will be reviewed and drawn up.
In particular, the Il Cigno Cooperative illustrated the activities of the Mother Teresa of Calcutta rSheller for Homeless people in Rome located in Via Monte Libretti 16 where guests and operators have started an approach to Sport through Antigymnastics thanks to the collaboration with the certified teacher Elisa Di Lorenzo. Antigymnastics is a discipline which, through movements and proprioceptive exercises, brings the people who experience it back into contact with their body and with their emotions. Another experience starting is a gym program led by a qualified Trainer (Massimiliano Morelli) from Elis Sport with which Il Cigno has just started the collaboration and which will be structured in 10 training sessions to reactivate People on a muscular level but also on a mental by promoting a healthy lifestyle and taking care of your body. The Ministry of Health also participated in the Budapest meeting to delve deeper into the issues addressed by the Project which in a first phase explored and examined in depth what good practices exist in Europe in which sport is used as a key tool in people’s social inclusion paths Homeless. Precisely as a direct experience of good practice within the Project, the seventh edition of the Winter Cup Tournament organized by Megallo took place on February 24th with a specific focus on people with pathological addictions, target groups with many points of contact and sometimes coexistence with the most heterogeneous population of Homelessness. Although there is no comparable data at European level on the correlation between homelessness and drug use, specific studies have been conducted in many countries and drug use is reported to be a frequent problem among homeless people (EMCDDA, Annual Report, 2002 ). Denmark, France, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom report that up to 80% of homeless people living in makeshift accommodation are addicted; the prevalence rates are even higher among people who live on the streets or are homeless and with other social problems. For example, according to a small study conducted in Ireland, 67% of homeless ex-offenders have addictions (Hickey, 2002). The objective of the tournament is to establish a dialogue and sharing a sporting experience between social workers, substance dependent people, homeless people and ordinary citizens for one day. The Partners of the Push Project also actively participated in the tournament within the Megallo team that won the tournament.
