Volunteer Profile: Michele Fortunato | 22.08.2012
The 19 year-old university student from Andria, Italy, has used the skills he gained as a web developer in a communications agency and worked with a group of friends to create an impressive website for athletes and fans in his spare time.
Atletiperscaso.net (athletes by chance) features news, results, interviews with Italian athletes, race information and much more. The main purpose is to help grass roots athletes find competitions with others of the right level to challenge them and push them to their best performance
Sometimes putting in 12 hours a day, Michele is the webmaster for the site, writes many of the articles and takes the photos that are published.
If you love athletics and speak Italian, atletipercaso.net is a must visit website. But even if your knowledge of the language is limited, you should check it out, if only to see Michele’s very professional and impressive design.
The site has been registered as a Young Leaders Community project and for the work he has put in already Michele has received a European Athletics-UNESCO Young Leaders Community Bronze volunteer certificate. Thanks Michele for a great job promoting the sport!
On his project page Michele says he is looking for help with the site and maybe to expand it to other countries and languages. Interested? Click here to join the Young Leaders Community and see Michele’s profile and project page.
We were able to get Michele to take a break from his work on atletiperscaso.net for a quick interview:
What is your regular occupation?
I'm attending my first year of university, studying Energetic Engineering.
What was the inspiration for creating the atletipercaso.net website?
I created atletipercaso.net because I noticed that athletics needs more visibility and connections between athletes can improve this amazing sport.
What is your role?
I'm the webmaster of the website, but I also do the photographs and I contribute articles too.
Where does the project go from here?
Atletipercaso.net is trying to become a place where athletes can find all they need to improve their experience in athletics (news, photos, videos, pre-entries, etc).
Do you have a favorite athlete? Who is it and why?
I don't have a favorite athlete. All the athletes are worthy of my admiration because athletics is a very difficult sport and it leads youngsters to the correct values of the life.
Are you a member of the European Athletics Young Leaders Community and doing volunteer work in athletics? Be sure that the club, event or school where you are working is registered as a partner, or that your personal project is registered, so you can log your hours and your valuable contribution to the sport can be recognised. For more information, click here.
Certificates are now being sent to members of the community (Bronze for 100 hours, Silver for 250 hours and Gold for 500 hours) and athleticscommunity.org will be publishing spotlight profiles of many of the winners in the coming weeks and months.
