ECF at the MOVING People - MOVING Europe Conference

“Strong leadership is needed to make advocacy successful” Dr. Bernhard Ensink, Secretary General of the ECF, stressed to participants from across Europe and the Middle East at the MOVING People – MOVING Europe Conference held in Paris on November 24, 2018.

“We need strong advocacy for active lifestyles – for walking, cycling, being physically active. We need safe public spaces and infrastructure for this. We need to use international partnerships, collaborations and projects to create strong voices and a loud concert for healthier societies.”  Said Dr. Ensink. He was speaking as part of a workshop organized by the ECF on “How to become a successful advocacy leader?” for the Active Voice Project on promoting all forms of health–enhancing physical activity (HEPA).

“Build your organization by choosing your campaigns and actions carefully. They need to be consistent with your mission, involve important groups, and build your political power. (…) Each campaign should strengthen your organization to make it possible to work on bigger challenges.” These in turn build your political power base, he noted. He went on to state that working together with other important groups strengthens your positioning and arguments with decision makers.

“As advocacy organisations creating strong, active voices for the change we want to see, we need to use every campaign and project to become stronger organizations year after year. The research evidence is there – but the job of really changing mainstream policies is not done”, said Dr. Ensink after the close of the successful workshop.

The MOVING People – MOVING Europe Conference, hosted by the International Sport and Culture Association (ISCA) and Union Française des Oeuvres Laïques d'Éducation Physique (UFOLEP), brought together the partners of four EU Erasmus+ projects and key stakeholders in physical activity promotion from around the world. These included professionals from the grassroots sport, physical activity, health, urban planning and education sectors, along with representatives from the cities of Paris, Barcelona, Birmingham, Wroclaw and Plovdiv. 

“We know enough about the problems facing us, and the solutions to be able to act now,” said Dr. Randy Rzewnicki, senior Health Expert at the ECF. These problems include the many diseases related to sedentarism and physical inactivity, including cancer, diabetes, heart disease and obesity. “It’s necessary for the health sector to be involved and there’s good evidence that they can help to solve these problems,” said Dr. Rzewnicki.

Mr. Mogens Kirkeby, President of ISCA, as well as the Active Voice project leader and organizer of the Conference, commented on the participation of Dr. Ensink and Dr. Rzewnicki, stating: “We were very pleased with your intervention and with the valuable contributions you made to the Conference and Active Voice workshop by sharing your views and experiences. This was very inspiring to the many participants at the Conference and also to us”.

Active Voice Project

The Active Voice Project has developed tools and resources to help HEPA advocates and grassroots sport organisations improve their influence on physical activity policy and make their advocacy efforts more effective overall.

Active Voice eLearning

Active Voice eLearning was developed as a key part of the project to help grassroots sport sectors to build capacity in advocating for physical activity and healthy lifestyles. It was developed by the ECF, EUPEA, EPODE, Healthy Stadia and ISCA, all partners in the Active Voice project. Active Voice eLearning provides a lot of educational content prepared for reading, listening, learning by doing (exercises), and finally completing the eLearning with a test to receive a certificate. You can find a video introduction to the eLearning platform here.

The Active Voice Project is funded with support from the European Commission under Erasmus+ Sport Collaborative Partnerships of Events Supporting the #BeActive European Week of Sport. ECF was a proud partner in this project.  ISCA Project manager and contact person: Ms. Saska Benedicic Tomat, sbt@isca-web.org