Special guests at the Village+Sport: NOC*NSF

In 2015 Kinder+Sport was launched in The Netherlands and became partner of the Dutch Week of Sport, a national program of the Dutch Olympic Committee (NOC*NSF) to promote an active lifestyle among all ages. This successful program is running for over 10 years and today reaches more than 600.000 people, the majority of which are children. Moreover, it is recognized by the European Commission as a best practice and serves as inspiration to the European Week of Sport. In short, a great platform to reach children and parents and spread the joy of moving!

To bring the partnership to a new level, Kinder+Sport Netherlands and NOC*NSF launched the strategic action plan ‘Joy of moving' during the Dutch Week of Sport in September. The plan is based on two pillars: knowledge and fun. One of the key drivers is to leverage our own science-based ‘Joy of moving' method, developed by Caterina Pesce from the University Foro Italico in Rome. In order to facilitate the exchange of knowledge and experiences between the Netherlands and Italy regarding physical education a delegation of key Dutch stakeholders from science, education and sports visited Alba in November for a combination of theory and practice. First they received a passionate presentation by Caterina Pesce about the Joy of moving method. She explained in detail the scientific grounds on which the method is built and what the holistic approach aims to achieve. Next step was a visit to the Village+Sport to see the method in practice. Being sports lovers, the participants wanted to test the method themselves and had great fun. This shows that the joy of moving is ageless!

The participants were impressed by Ferrero's strong commitment to move children and the approach Kinder+Sport has developed to make this happen. In particular the fact that the aim of Ferrero is to move children in a sustainable way and create real impact!

The visit was a great success. Bringing these key stakeholders to Alba enables Kinder+Sport to position itself as a credible and valuable partner, and to build a strong foundation for a successful implementation of Kinder+Sport in The Netherlands the coming years.

And this visit is just the beginning. The next step is a return visit to The Netherlands to share with Caterina Pesce and the Kinder+Sport global team which approach is used in The Netherlands in- and outside schools to move children and how organisations collaborate to make this happen. This way we can really create a win-win situation!