Project description

According to available materials from the WADA World Anti-Doping Agency, the number of suspicious findings has risen since 2013 from 2540 findings to 3032 findings in 2016. So in just three years this number has increased by 492 findings worldwide. In the European Union, the number of positive doping findings for 2016 is 592, which is more than one-fifth of worldwide findings. This figure includes only registered sportsmen and does not include amateur sports where there is no need for registration, recreational sportsmen (for which the numbers would be much higher) or sports witch do not belong to the International Olympic Sports Committee. In this case, these numbers were higher. Another major problem is drug abuse for psychological stimulation during stressful situations such as school exams or sudden personal circumstances. In a personal anonymous survey at the fitness center, over 60% of respondents had experience of abusing banned substances. And over 80% considered whether they were considering the use of these substances. Two-thirds of respondents were under the age of 23.

The aim of this project is to educate young people about this issue, to inform about the risks and side effects of doping abuse (such as anabolic steroids, hormones and others), to inform about the risks of drug use, the risks of abuse of commonly available drugs, to provide information on how to recognize drug addicts in their neighborhood and possibly providing help or help to rehabilitate this addict, informing about a healthy lifestyle. The project will contribute to democratic participation of youth and will support young people in the active promotion of democratic values, tolerance, democratic decision making, active fighting of racism, discrimination, xenophobia, bullying and active promotion of respect for minorities. Another objective of this project is to educate trainers / educators / youth workers to inform youth about this issue and how to prevent the subsequent use of hazardous substances.

LTTA participants, participants of transnational participants and local participants will be involved in the project. The project also includes 2000 participants of online educational activities and 300 participants of the day-to-day educational activities. They will be selected from youth not only because of their engagement in sports and the level of drug abuse and drug availability. Within five years from the end of the project, educational activities will take place for min. 300 project target group members in all partner countries.

There will be 3 LTTAs focusing on the project objectives described above and 3 transnational meetings. The objectives of the project will be achieved by implementing the described assets by youth, professionals in the field of sports, health, professional sportsmen, people with negative doping experience and youth fitness exercisers with appropriate implementation through partial works in LTTA and transnational meetings. In particular, it will be a structured set of free online educational materials containing educational articles, a methodical guide for trainers/educators/youth workers, a recommendation for European NGOs active in the field of sport to raise awareness of the target group to an independent initiative drug abuse and banned substances in adolescents, and learning about healthy lifestyles. The project will have a positive impact on LTTA participants in the new knowledge and skills of participants on the issue of drug abuse, doping and other dangerous substances in sport and personal life, skill of help to addicted youth, knowledge of the integration of disadvantaged youth into sports and healthy sports nutrition. Participants will develop the ability to communicate in English, interpersonal communication, negative approach to prejudice, racism and xenophobia, use of the European Youthpass and Europass passports. The project will impact participants in transnational meetings by developing their IT, professional / scientific, dissemination and organizational skills. The project will have an impact on partner organizations by increasing their involvement in international networks of NGOs, developing expertise and skills of co-workers, and developing their project management skills.

Europe for you, z.s. will develop a plan for the sustainability of key project outputs. At least 5 years after the end of the project, all processed outputs will be available online free of charge.

The project will be useful in the long run by opening up free online education to prevent and combat the abuse of drugs and hazardous substances for European youth, access to education on doping and drug abuse and disadvantaged youth through a methodological guide in English, enhancing quality and involving young people in sport activities by developing recommendations for European NGOs active in the field of sports. In preparing this project, we integrated from all evaluators‘ comments of the last project.