22/02/2023
Spain
participants
These Solidarity Olympics had the objective as an association to:
- -Emphasize the social value of physical and sports activity, bringing international students closer to the youth of our region.
- -Guarantee a solidarity purpose of the initiative with direct collection for entities dedicated to providing food to the most needy families in the region
- -Strengthen relations with the European University of the Atlantic (UNEAT) to boost the services they provide with international students.
- -Provide professionalism, value and diversity to the participation of our Erasmus in a national event for international students with regard to participation in network events.
As a purpose, at the organizational level:
- -Improve the sports, social and cultural offer of international students by being the only group that could participate. The winners could enjoy a fully covered trip to the National Erasmus Games in Santiago de Compostela.
- -Help the University's Corporate Social Responsibility by integrating a participation requirement with the donation of food (more than 106 kg collected).
The Solidarity Olympics are a sporting event that seeks to promote sports and inclusion in society, through university students, both international and local.
Organized over two weeks (four days in the afternoon) at the sports facilities of the European University of the Atlantic (UNEAT), with interspersed competitions depending on the availability of the participants, taking into account the academic obligations of the international students.
The requirements to participate in the activity were to be an international student or national exchange student from any university in our region and to donate 2kg of non-perishable food for each sport in which they signed up, food that would later be donated to the Food Bank.
At a logistical level, ESN Santander contacted the European University of the Atlantic (UNEAT), which is located in Santander, to propose a plausible collaboration with them. Thanks to the close relationship that has been maintained with them in recent years, an agreement was reached: they offered us their facilities for the local phase of the Olympics, and committed to financing the entire trip to the National Erasmus Games Santiago, the Olympic national competition for ESN Sections in Spain for the winner students from the local phase. This included the bus, insurance, fee (with accommodation included) and equipment for the 14 participants.
T-shirts were designed for the event with the logos of both ESN and UNEAT, so that they would be represented at the national event.
Internally, more than 15 volunteers organized the matches schedule, the food collection and the organization of the matches, participating as referees of the event itself.The local part was a success in all three sports: soccer, basketball and volleyball. The students signed up in teams and all brought food to donate. 106 kg were collected, which were taken to the Santander Food Bank as a solidarity initiative. On the last day of the competition, an awards ceremony was held, attended by two people representing UNEAT: the director and the coordinator of the International Relations Office.
From this competition, the winners of football, basketball and volleyball emerged. These players moved on to the next phase, the National Erasmus Games, where they won the basketball tournament and two athletics competitions.
As a result of this collaboration with UNEAT, the National Erasmus Games winners were also paid for transportation and accommodation to the International Erasmus Games, and for all the t-shirts of the teams represented by Erasmus Student Network Spain, which had the University logo.
Instagram stories and photos were published about it on the Erasmus Student Network Santander Instagram, and the Universidad del Atlántico itself made publications. In addition, a press release was released at the end of the event to compile information about the kg of food collected, student participation and collaboration with the university, which was published on the Universidad del Atlántico website.
