Almost 90 schools and kindergartens from all over Poland signed up for the tenth anniversary edition of No Elevators Day in 2024. On Wednesday, 24 April, more than 10,000 children took part in the various activities planned for the day. Of all the participants, we also awarded 10 establishments that created the most interesting photo and video reports of the event.

You can read about how we connect the youngest through joint movement in the quarterly “Europe for the Active”, which was published at the end of 2023. In the publication, Jakub Kalinowski also talked about an innovative project called “Integrative Detective Adventure,” which we have been implementing in 40 elementary schools in Poland since September 2023. The initiative is aimed at linguistic and cultural integration of refugee children through joint physical activity and fun.

On 19/12/2023, a webinar organized by the Cities Changing Diabetes (CCD) program took place, during which Piotr Sitkowski – co-founder of the V4Sport Foundation – talked about the Move4Fun project, which we implemented in Poland as a response to the challenges of immobility. We are proud to have presented among a group of experts, such as Secretary General of the International Sport and Culture Association, Jacob Schouenborg, and Dr. Jill Popp and Mette Hauch – representatives of The LEGO Foundation.

From November 16 to 19, 2023, Madrid hosted one of the world’s largest conferences on the topics of physical activity and grassroots sports. During the event, Jakub Kalinowski had the pleasure of addressing the international forum about our initiative, part of the Integration of Ukrainian Refugee Children Through Sport (IURTS) project. The President of the Foundation shared our experience of implementing the Integration Detective Adventure in 40 Polish schools.

Every year, the number of participants in the European School Sport Day continues to grow. This year, a remarkable 1126 educational institutions from all over Poland joined ESSD2023! Additionally, 5884 teachers participated in the event, engaging a total of 107624 children.

The materials created for this occasion, titled “Active Lessons Plan” in English, were not only utilized by children in Poland and Ukraine but also by students in other countries associated with the holiday.

In late May 2023, the twelfth edition of MOVE Week unfolded, breaking records with an impressive number of educational institutions from Poland joining. A total of 680 schools and kindergartens actively engaged over 56,400 children and nearly 3,115 teachers. We take pride in the fact that the “Active Breaks Plan” materials, specially prepared for the occasion, were utilized by children in 825 schools in Ukraine.

The European School Sports Day 2022, which we coordinated in Poland and Ukraine, was nominated by the Sport Biznes Polska Association for the SBP awards in the special category of SOCIAL SPORTS PROJECT 2022.

In December 2022, we had an honour to host experts from the French PLAY International organization in Poland, who conducted two trainings on refugee integration through sport for teachers and sports coaches in Wrocław and Warsaw.

In 2022, we had a great pleasure to implement the movement education program in partnership with the Krokiet & Lama Academy in almost 90 Wrocław kindergartens and primary schools (grades 1-3), for which over 320 teachers registered. On December 14, 2022, we solemnly summed up our nine-month cooperation with facilities from Wrocław, the event attended by almost 100 participants.

The Croquet and Lama Academy, which we are a strategic partner of, won the main #BeActive Awards prize in 2022 in the EDUCATION category. The Academy, as the first initiative from Poland, won this international competition, which is a recognition of the European Commission for special efforts made to promote physical activity, apart from typical sports activities at school and kindergarten.

On November 22-23, 2022, we had a pleasure to represent Poland at the MOVING conference and share our experiences with representatives of organizations from 40 countries around the world. We are proud that Jakub Kalinowski spoke at this international forum and drew the participants’ attention to the situation of people affected by the war in Ukraine.

Inviting Ukrainian institutions to participate in the ESSD 2022 was the first step on the way to establishing long-term cooperation. This resulted in the signing of a letter of intent in November 2022 with the following organizations – UkraineActive and the State Scientific Institution “Institute of Modernization of the Content of Education” and the International Sport and Culture Association “. The subject of the letter is to establish partner relations and support Ukraine in education, sports and physical activity in the future.

In 2022, for the third time, we had an honour to co-create a report on the general physical fitness of children and adolescents in Poland. The document that has been drafted is part of the Global Matrix 4.0 research initiated by the Active Healthy Kids Global Alliance (AHKGA) and conducted in 57 countries in 6 different continents.

In October 2022, we signed an agreement with PLAY International, a French expert organization, which has over 20 years of experience in integrating refugees through sport  in over 20 countries around the world, and which has already covered over a million participants with its activities.

A record number of institutions applied for the European School Sports Day in 2022: min. 1,055 schools and kindergartens which engaged at least 113,963 children and over 5,340 teachers. We are also proud that the materials prepared for this occasion were also used by children in Ukraine.

We talked about the role of physical activity in helping refugees in May 2022 on the TVP World program – Help Without Borders, in which Piotr Sitkowski had the pleasure to appear together with Jacob Schouenborg – ISCA – the International Sport and Culture Association secretary general.

Piotr Sitkowski, a co-founder of the V4Sport Foundation, guested on a TVP World program Help Without Borders in April 2022, during which he talked about the integration of Ukrainian children through sport using the materials of the Krokiet and Lama Academy.

On December 21, 2021, Jakub Kalinowski spoke at the Erasmus+ Sport conference entitled Local sport in Poland. During the session, he told, among others, about an educational cycle entitled Active, healthy local government – how to create modern strategies of sport and physical activity?, which we created together with the Veolia Polska Foundation.

Jakub Kalinowski – President of the V4Sport Foundation, spoke during the Smart Cities and Sport Summit, which took place in 2021 in Copenhagen. During the presentation entitled Disruption in Education, he talked about how we can contribute to the proper development and health of the youngest city dwellers by means of physical activity.

In October 2021, we had the pleasure to be among the partners of the Rural Sports Congress, which gathered nearly 200 representatives of communities key to the development of rural sports.  Jakub Kalinowski shared his knowledge and experience, on our behalf, in designing activities aimed at increasing physical activity and reducing sedentary behaviour. The Congress was also an excellent opportunity to present our activities, e.g. AHKGA.

At the end of 2021, together with the Veolia Polska Foundation, we organized an educational cycle entitled Active, healthy local government – how to create modern sports and physical activity strategies? which we addressed to representatives of local authorities and employees as well as representatives of local social organizations. As part of the initiative, we provided a series of video materials, podcasts and online meetings run by Polish and foreign experts, including Dr. Anna Lowe, Mogens Kirkeby, Dr. Mark Tremblay, Dr. Jayne Greenberg and Oliver Vanges.

On June 8-9, 2021, together with the Veolia Polska Foundation, in partnership with the Józef Piłsudski University of Physical Education in Warsaw, we organized an online conference on the role of local governments in activities aimed at increasing the physical activity of residents, with particular emphasis on the needs of children and adolescents. The speakers included i.a. Sanna Vesikansa – Vice Mayor of the City of Helsinki. We also connected with #EUSportForum 2021 in Brussels.

The project developed and implemented by the V4Sport Foundation was presented in the European Commission report in 2021. It mapped innovative projects in sport, as the only initiative from Poland.

The Krokiet and Lama Academy – the program of which the V4Sport Foundation is a strategic partner – has been described as a good practice in an international publication, along with solutions from Brazil, the USA and Great Britain.

An article by Jakub Kalinowski entitled Smaller Data, Healthier Kids, Smarter Cities was published in 2019 in Healthy Cities.

The Active MultiSport Schools program, which we implemented together with Benefit Systems, received a silver Clip in the main category of Media relations in 2019. Our communication activities based on unique research findings and educational materials resulted in the development of over 1,300 earned media publications, with a total value of nearly PLN 3.5 million and reaching 14.9 million recipients.

The Ministry of Sport and Tourism referred to the data included in the Global Matrix 3.0 report in their decision to implement the Skaut program.

In 2019, one of the world’s leading publications – Journal of Physical Activity and Health issued an extensive article summarizing the importance and role of the results collected in the Global Matrix reports in taking action to increase children’s level of physical activity.

Jakub Kalinowski also contributed to the publication.

Our dream is for good, proven practices to become an inspiration also for teachers and schools all over Poland. With this in mind, we have created a Good Practice Handbook, in which you will find initiatives implemented under the Active MultiSport Schools program. It is a collection of good, proven ideas on how schools encourage children, parents and teachers to move.

In 2019, Jakub Kalinowski delivered a speech at the Smart Cities & Sport Summit in Tokyo. The question whether … we are smart enough put by Jakub during the presentation opened a discussion on how to use new technologies so that they serve to change sedentary habits and develop an active society.

All children participating in the first edition of Active MultiSport Schools took part in the EuroFit+ fitness test twice. The test is based on 9 simple fitness exercises. The measurement carried out at the beginning and end of the project made it possible to assess the children’s progress and the effectiveness of the program itself. Most importantly, as many as 86% (30 out of 35) of schools improved their test scores.

At the Movement to Move conference, organized in 2018 by Active Healthy Kids Australia and Sport Australia, 49 countries, including Poland, presented results of the Global Matrix 3.0. The results concerning the general level of physical fitness of children in Poland were presented by Jakub Kalinowski.

In May/June 2024, we had the honour of coordinating the thirteenth edition of MOVE Week, to which more than 85,000 students and 4,500 teachers from over 730 schools, kindergartens and other educational institutions from all over Poland signed up. Although the initiative has always been inclusive, this year we also paid special attention to establishments attended by children with disabilities. For the first time, we prepared materials dedicated to children with hearing and visual impairments as well as intellectual and motor disabilities. The project was co-financed by the State Fund for the Rehabilitation of People with Disabilities and EU funds.