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The Councilor for Sport of the Calabria Region, Eulalia Micheli, opens the race for the title and the drafting of the candidacy dossier: “It is not just a prize, it is a life choice for the future of our young people and our land. Calabria can become the great wellness park of the Mediterranean”.
Making sport a daily and accessible practice, capable of generating health, inclusion and sociability and restoring value to the places we live in. It is from this idea that the Calabria Region’s candidacy for the title of “ACES European Region of Sport 2028” takes shape, the international recognition assigned by ACES Europe to entities that promote sport as an integral part of health, inclusion, participation and sustainable development policies.
A path started by the regional council on the initiative of president Roberto Occhiuto, which aims to connect different skills and realities: from regional departments to park authorities, from sports institutions to the world of schools and universities.
“The candidacy arises from a very simple question: how can we make sport a concrete part of people’s lives? – explains councilor Eulalia Micheli -. The answer cannot only be in the construction of new facilities or the organization of large events. It means creating conditions so that a child can approach sport, so that an elderly person can continue to practice it, so that a person with a disability can find spaces and opportunities, so that even those who live in a small municipality in the hinterland have the same opportunity to feel good through physical activity”.
The application now enters its operational phase, with the preparation of the application dossier, which will be delivered by 15 September. In November, Calabria will await the visit of the ACES Europe Evaluation Commission, called to get to know the territory, the projects and the institutional and social network built around the candidacy.
“Applying Calabria to be the European Region of Sport 2028 – Micheli also underlines – is born first of all from an act of love towards our land. We live in a true open-air gym: from the national parks to the coasts, up to the paths of our marine and regional parks, an extraordinary natural heritage. We have places that can become spaces for movement, meeting and well-being. Our challenge is to be able to connect them, to make them dialogue with sports, health, environmental and tourism policies. It is here that the candidacy takes on a meaning that goes beyond the title, it is the opportunity to put all this together and show Europe the best face of our region”.
The Dossier will therefore be built through a network of subjects called upon to share data, experiences and projects. Alongside the Region, the Park Authorities, CONI, CIP, Sport and Health, the Regional School Office and the Calabrian universities will be involved, together with the local entities that already operate in the promotion of sports practice.
Particular attention will be dedicated to young people and schools, to prevention and lifestyles, to the accessibility of sport and to the valorisation of the outdoors.
“The most important part of this journey, for me, is precisely this – adds Sport councilor Micheli -: not limiting ourselves to telling what Calabria already is, but using the candidacy to build what we want it to become. Sport can help reduce distances, create communities, restore centrality to the territories and above all educate on a culture of well-being that begins long before the disease”.
The candidacy is developed around four directions: health and prevention; inclusion and accessibility; outdoor sports and enhancement of the environment; events and territorial attractiveness. A model in which sports practice is considered not as a separate sector, but as a transversal component of regional policies.
“I would like this candidacy to be perceived above all as an opportunity – concludes councilor Micheli -. An opportunity to look at ourselves with different eyes and to show Europe a Calabria capable not only of welcoming, but of proposing its own model. A Calabria that runs, walks, pedals, plays, lives in its spaces and takes care of them. A Calabria that puts people’s well-being at the center of its choices”.