EuroHockey was honoured to welcome three distinguished guests from the European Union to showcase the implementation of two Erasmus+ co funded projects: The EuroHockey Institute and the Aspiring and Inspiring Youth Leaders certificate.
Gael Broze (Head of Sport Sector EACEA), Luciano Di Fonzo (Deputy Head of Unit) and Valentina Colangelo (Project Officer for both programmes) were all in attendance along with 30 key stakeholders.
Over the past three years, the European Union has co-funded projects extensively to facilitate the development of the EuroHockey Institute.
The Institute now encompasses seven pillars, specifically focusing on athletes, coaching, officiating, governance, workforce, innovation and sustainability as well as overseeing the solidarity grant programme.
In total, these pillars now cover nearly 40 different programmes to raise educational, learning and developmental standards across each aspect of the sport.
This final multiplier event provided the platform to showcase the incredible work that has been done over the past three years in this realm.
EuroHockey’s Tom Pedersen-Smith outlined how this took place in his opening introduction, welcoming the partners and laying out their role in reaching the intellectual outcomes to date.
Copenhagen University’s Associate Professor Adam Evans recapped the academic framework which underpins the work.
“The EuroHockey Institute project has been really well organised,” he said of the work carried out.
“It has been a very complicated and sophisticated project with lots of different moving parts and partners from across sectors, working on particular objectives.
“It has been really clear, having interviewed a lot of the partner organisations, that they have had a clear idea of what is expected of them and what the outputs needed to be.”
Gerald Duby of Belgium Hockey and Rick Sleegers, Director at the Orange Sport Forum talked through the principles behind the elements of the athlete pillar, creating a lifestyle of support through innovative partnerships.
Nathan Kipp (KNHB) and Dick Besters (Hockey Magic) spoke about the coaching pathway and the use of the European qualifications framework.
On sustainability, Stephan Haumann from the Deutsche Hockey Bund talked through the evolution of the Hockey Forest and how inclusion and diversity of thought are vital in this realm.
EuroHockey President Marcos Hofmann thanked each part for their huge input into the project before citing the invaluable support of the European Union to help make it happen.
“European Union funding is very important for this sort of project,” he said following the meeting.
“Long-term investments into the likes of the EuroHockey Institute basically allow us to put a frame around education, the development of future leaders and future structures for growing nations to develop hockey which all need investment.
“Having secure, multi-year EU funding is the best way to fund these projects and so we say a big thank you for their support to help us push forward these ambitions.”
** To find out more about the EuroHockey Institute and its activities, click here
