Over 4 thousand tutors for physical activity in elementary and middle schools with an investment of 17 million, the creation of territorial hubs and investments in urban parks. And yet a “new pact” with the Government, the Coni, the Federations and the sports bodies to ensure that Italian sport continues to shine and that at the next statistical survey Italy is no longer a bad example of sedentary lifestyle.
Sport and Health
Vito Cozzoli, from March 2020 president and CEO of Sport and Health, rattles off numbers and projects to reveal to the Sole 24 Ore the ambitious industrial plan of the company, controlled by the Minister of Economy, which, with the reform of sports governance, deals with sport basic and the promotion of more correct lifestyles. Aware of the delicate season that is about to open, in which the long wave of successes achieved in the summer will be channeled into concrete development initiatives to be then merged into the bed of the National Recovery and Resilience Plan. “Sport and Health – explains Cozzoli – which can count on a budget of 83 million, intends to use these resources to become the incubator of Italian sport, in harmony with the other realities that preside over what, together with the school, is one of the pillars from the country, as the Premier Mario Draghi recalled ».
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The school plan
One of the weak points of the sports movement is precisely the school. “Sport is a right and must enter the life of children from the first school cycle. This is the reason – specifies the CEO of Sport and Health – why we want to relaunch physical activity in primary school. While the Undersecretary for Sport Valentina Vezzali is working on a law for sports in elementary school, we have allocated 17 million to guarantee two hours of lessons with graduates in physical education in 76,500 classes with an audience of 1.5 million students, 60% of the national total. Compared to the 2019/20 school year, this means an increase of 175 percent. The same will happen in lower secondary schools for a thousand schools, 11 thousand classes and 220 thousand pupils. In the next few days a platform will be activated for the enrollment of schools and one for the candidacies of teachers ». The latter, estimated to be over 4 thousand, will act as tutors and as a point of reference in the school complexes to coordinate the initiatives to be implemented with the sports organizations of the territory. «Because carrying out these initiatives without the contribution of local sports realities makes little sense – underlines Cozzoli -. All 44 Federations will be involved in the school project and no longer just 6 as happened in the past ».
Sport and Health for the territory
The territory is another strand of the industrial plan. «The backbone of Italian sport – explains the president – is made up of tens of thousands of amateur associations and clubs. Sport and health through its local structures must support them, providing proximity services from tax and legal advice to that for plant engineering. We must become a hub, a 360-degree service center. From November we will leave for breaking latest news and Cosenza. And we’ll be launching the Sports & Health app shortly. Furthermore, in line with the provisions of the Sostegni bis decree, which allocates 6 million euros for the Sport in the parks initiative, we intend to promote the strengthening of activities in public areas. We are cooperating with ANCI and 1,681 Municipalities have already joined ». The social value of sport is the core business (“a call for sports practice in disadvantaged neighborhoods with already 1,282 applications received and another for inclusion projects on which we collaborate with the Paralympic Committee which has registered over 2,400 is open – recalls Cozzoli questions “), but Sport and Health does not want to be perceived as a mere donor body (” in the middle of the pandemic we assisted the community of 193 thousand sports collaborators with all our energy, paying over a billion in public aid “).
Commitment to sport
«The Olympic and Paralympic victories – concludes Cozzoli – demonstrate that the reform works. So far Sport e Salute has financed the Federations with 871 million and has supported Coni with 13 million and 4 the Cip for Tokyo. This is why our goal is to cooperate with everyone, Government, Cones, Federations, associations and grassroots companies, to achieve our mission, in the distinction of roles reaffirmed in Parliament by Undersecretary Vezzali. In the autumn, the European Parliament will organize a seminar and invited Sport and Health to give their testimony on how to overcome the crisis. We will do our part so that Italy is an increasingly sporting and winning country ».