Sit2Play Launch Meeting

ParaVolley Europe President, Branko Mihorko, and Development Director, Richard Stacey Chapman, visited the Italian Volleyball Federation (FIPAV) headquarters in Rome from 19-20^th February for the kick-off meeting of the Sit2Play project.

The project, which is funded by the Erasmus+ Programme of the European Union, will develop an inclusive format of sitting volleyball to allow young people with physical and mental disabilities to play alongside young people without a disability. The project was developed by FIPAV who will work alongside the Italian Paralympic Committee and 5 other national partners to develop the sport:

• Bulgarian Ministry of Youth and Sport
• Estonian Volleyball Federation
• Finnish Volleyball Federation
• Slovenian Volleyball Federation
• Turkish Volleyball Federation

During the meetings the basic structure of the project was discussed, outlining how the project will work, how it is finance and what responsibilities each partner has. There were then discussions around the two key outcomes of the project:

• Competition regulations – the project will develop a format to allow schools to play inclusive sitting volleyball in a national competition. Each nation will then have a team who then participates in an international competition in Rome in November
• Teacher training – the project will develop teacher training materials and resources to allow them to deliver sitting volleyball in an inclusive way. These resources will create an online platform and will help to facilitate a seminar in each country to share ideas.

Each of the partners will now begin their own work on the project and PVE is looking forward to supporting the development of the regulations as well as participant and teacher questionnaires and feedback reports.

More information about the project is available on the Sit2Play website.