ENGSO at TAFISA World Congress 2023 "Together more than ever"
Düsseldorf, 1-5 November 2023
TAFISA (The Association for International Sport for All) held its General Assembly and it’s 28th World Congress in Düsseldorf on 1-5 November 2023.
The event was hosted by the German Olympic Sports Confederation (DOSB). The North Rhine-Wesphalia region is getting more active in hosting international sport events, just to mention some of them: Ruhr Games 2023, Men’s EHF EURO 2024 or the FISU Universiade 2025.
The region effectively turns urban places into sport parks which also appears hosting venues at these international sport events. The congress participants could go for different field trips in the region, one of them was Landschaftspark Duisburg-Nord which is an old iron factory turned into a climbing, via ferrata and adventure park.
Reusing specific spaces in a different way can also remind us to that not only places but the cooperation in the World should be sustainable as well. More and more conflicts appears around Europe, and millions of people are effected in a terribly negative way by its consequences. That is why projects like Sports As Value existence is very important in the local and international level in grassroots sports. Grassroots sports have a personal impact on people where they can easily bond with each other, being not divided – not like in professional sports – but all participants are welcome to the game. Competing can be a certain element of the grassroots’ fun but the most important is to enjoy the activities itself. After having interesting debates about how sport has a political role or not, if sport really unites us or not we could conclude that against our different views we can still agree that peace is the most important and grassroots and sport for all segments of the sport sectors can effectively contribute to this. Through capacity building activities we can involve more nations, more stakeholders to this movement, which also aligns with our project aims: Sports As Value. Let’ s use the power of sport to create unity and common values among us.
The project was represented and presented at the poster session by ENGSO Project Manager, Anett Fodor. The project team will soon organise its second workshop, – this time in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina – about how to organise sustainable grassroots sports events with international cooperation between different countries.