“A healthy mind in a healthy body” was the main theme of the 24th Pippi Longstocking Festival for children in Velenje, Slovenia, 22-28 September.
The festival attracts approximately 100,000 school-aged visitors throughout the week and features more than 100 creative workshops where they can try different activities.
2008 Olympic hammer throw champion Primo…¾ Kozmus together with members of the European Athletics Young Leaders Community were on hand to make sure the event successfully promoted the values of athletics to these youngsters.
Kozmus, Slovenia’s number one athlete, performed a warm-up with the children and signed hundreds of autographs before speaking about his feelings for the sport. “Athletics is not just what I do for a living, athletics is my joy,” he said.
This year, a workshop called 'The Physical Exercise Challenge', which was delivered by student volunteers, was among the most popular of all attracting thousands of interested children.
The workshop linked the main elements of athletics - running, jumping and throwing - with educational and artistic components.
All children who took part in the workshop got the opportunity to make their own “winners” medal based on a design created by a second group of students from Velenje’s Art Gymnasium.
The project has been registered on the Young Leaders Community website and more than a thousand hours of volunteer work have been logged by the project team. For details click here.
Young Leaders Community member Ne…¾a Rotnik said, “The students were very happy to share their passion for sports, their creativity and their knowledge. They are looking forward to receiving the recognition certificates for the time they put in from European Athletics and UNESCO.'
The volunteers’ work included providing information on how to contact an athletics club to the young participants and conducting a mini survey to gauge their interest in taking up the sport.
Gregor Benčina, president of the Slovenia Athletic Federation said, “We are very grateful to Primo…¾, the Principal of Velenje Gymnasium, Rajmund Valcl, and the whole team for their efforts to attract children into our beautiful and healthy sport.”
The European Athletics Young Leaders Community promotes volunteer work and projects in athletics in order to help members develop themselves and make valuable contributions to the sport and their local communities. For more information click here.