The Erasmus Sport-funded IMPACT project, managed by the Sports Capital Jyväskylä, was launched. Finally!

The Capital of Sports, Jyväskylä, is building an international co-operation network with Umeå and Tartu, as well as regional sports clubs, with the aim of supporting young people's physical activity in the target areas. The pilot project, funded by the European Union and coordinated by the City of Jyväskylä, started in January 2021.

The two-day kick-off meeting of the Impact project was held in Jyväskylä 30.9.-1.10 2021. Despite the travel restrictions, all project partners were able to come to the kick-off meeting: The City of Umeå, RF-Sisu, the City of Tartu and the JBA (Jyväskylä Basketball Academy).

This core group of our project had only met each other remotely because travel restrictions prevented physical visits. However, Erasmus Sport funding is a resource dedicated to staff travel, so visits are mandatory. At last, this was successful, and we are able to continue the project.

In addition to the intensive project work done on Thursday and Friday, the project partners were introduced to a scratch on how our city aims to promote learning and maintaining a sporty and active lifestyle. After all, the basic philosophy of our IMPACT project comes from the Physical Literacy model. At the heart of this model is a lifelong holistic understanding of the importance of physically active lifestyle as a cornerstone of a healthy everyday life. From the city's point of view, we are then talking about services that support sports and physical activity, their contents as well as sports environments, for example.

In terms of sports conditions, we had time to get acquainted with Hippos' future development plans and the development of Jyväskylä City's new district Kangas, which has been built as a Smart City. The functional teaching space “Learning utopia” of the Keski-Palokka school is always a place worth presenting. This new kind of classroom is one of the results of the Schools on the Move -program, which has attracted worldwide interest. The classroom itself sparked an enthusiastic discussion.

As examples how the city of Jyväskylä increases physical activity in schools, the guests got acquainted with functional mathematics teaching and a hobby lesson.

Functional classroom teaching is one of the activities of the School on the Move, which is utilized in the schools of the city of Jyväskylä to create a more physically active school day for students.

Our foreign guests were very interested in the new Finnish hobby model and its implementation in Jyväskylä. During the long hobby break of Huhtasuo School, the guests got to see the hobby instructors in their practical work. An essential part of the Finnish hobby model is the involvement of students. The annual Hobby Wish -survey for students sparked a lot of discussion and was perceived by all partners as an interesting course of action. Let's see if we can hear about the hobby survey of Umeå schools, for example.

Thursday ended with a presentation of the JBA's activities, where coach Mikko Tupamäki spoke about the organisation's operational model. We spent a lot of time discussing the coaching philosophy of the JBA. The holistic perception of people and the seamless integration of sports coaching into the rest of everyday life of young athletes sparked a lively debate.

The City of Jyväskylä also had the opportunity to present its international range of sports events. On Friday, we participated as invited guests in the BusinessRally Finland event held at City Hall and in the Harju VIP special stage. The rally has an interesting connection between the three project cities, as all of them host the WRC Rally. Jyväskylä, Umeå and Tartu. A fun coincidence that unites the actors at the same time.

Text and photo: Jon Salminen