Pad4Youth arrives in Italy

The European-style appointments follow one another quickly, with the UISP Ciriè Settimo Chivasso Committee at the forefront. In fact, there are many projects that the Territorial Committee has under its belt to focus, as always, on sport as a privileged vehicle for social integration, for breaking down cultural stereotypes, for eliminating prevaricating attitudes and for learning the rules.

But that's not all: sporting activity can also become an innovative means of conveying the history of resistance, as taught by the VALUES project, which at the very end of March saw an intense meeting during which some places of resistance were visited French. A couple of weeks ago, however, a representation of the Ciriè Settimo Chivasso Committee met, together with the other partners involved, in the city of Reus for the kick-off meeting of Get Senior Active, a program which intends to exploit new technologies to transmitting knowledge on physical activity for caregivers who take care of the elderly within residential structures. And still speaking of new technologies, one cannot help but mention GUARD 2, a project that focuses on the phenomenon of cyberbullying, in order to create a network of "antennas" to counteract this behavior and support the victims.

If, on the other hand, the topic is social inclusion, it's time to talk about Pad4Youth, a project that has its roots in the value of the sporting discipline - in this specific case declining it with padel - in order to integrate children and teenagers with psychophysical difficulties and/or at risk of exclusion because they come from disadvantaged economic backgrounds. Recently, a second meeting that combined a "more playful" part with one more focused on the organizational aspect was held right here in Italy, to be exact at Campo Luigi Bosio in Settimo. In the first part of the morning of Saturday 15 April, in fact, the experts of the Valencian Padel Federation taught the instructors who attended - also coming from Croatia and Lisbon - the preparatory exercises to train children and teenagers in the correct movements during the sport: from correct grip of the racket, to the exact position of the feet, passing through coordination exercises, such as catching the ball with the non-dominant hand.

“Exercises that may appear trivial - commented the Director of the Ciriè Committee Settimo Chivasso Roberto Rinaldi, also armed with a padel racket - but which are indispensable for correctly performing this sport. After all, every sporting discipline has basics that must be learned correctly, otherwise you risk involuntarily hurting yourself by overloading your joints". Immediately after the teaching, the Bosio soccer field, adequately equipped with padel nets, the instructors of our Committee in turn gave lessons to the numerous children and young people who attended in the second part of the morning, for two hours dedicated to sports and entertainment. After a short break, the afternoon was instead dedicated to a meeting between the different partners, during which the project objectives were analyzed and the next meeting planned.