OUR APPROACH
For years, organisations, politicians and doctors have been pointing the finger at people, using guilt and fear to get them up off the couch.
We know that Europe faces a challenge in overcoming the threat of physical inactivity. But our approach is simply to invite everyone to "find the move that moves you" and rediscover the joy of being active.
So to get Europe moving, we started the NowWeMOVE campaign in 2012.
The NowWeMOVE campaign is open for all individuals and organisations from all sectors to join in and promote an ambitious and clear vision:
"To get 100 million more Europeans active in sport or physical activity by 2020."
We believe that change starts at the grassroots level.
That is why we developed the campaign from the bottom-up, relying on people who love to move and who want to share that joy with others. They are from sports organisations, from hospitals, from companies, from municipalities, from schools – even from prisons!
We named them MOVE Agents and gave them the tools and training to set up and shape their own event, group or team to get their community moving.
We then gathered this energy from the grassroots and dedicated a whole week to physical activity: MOVE Week, a pan-European celebration of the joy of moving. The first MOVE Week started in 2012, with more than two hundred and fifty events in 23 countries. A very good start!
One year later, the campaign grew over 500% and over 1200 events were implemented. But, it was in 2015 again that Europe exploded:
2917 MOVE Agents
7125 events
OVER 1809 European cities
38 countries
By supporting the grassroots sport sector and starting from the bottom up, NowWeMOVE is much more than a campaign week today. It is a year-round campaign, full of activities including street sport and cycling tours, a Europe-wide No Elevators Day and an awards scheme to reward the MOVE Agents who are making a difference in their communities.
Based on the dedication and involvement from the thousands of MOVE Agents from different sectors all over Europe, NowWeMOVE has truly become a real movement - a movement heading towards a greater vision for a healthier, happier and more active continent.
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MOVE Week is an annual Europe-wide event showcasing the benefits of being active and participating regularly in sport and physical activity.
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The most active day in Europe is coming: European Fitness Day.
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The European School Sport Day (ESSD) is a school day dedicated to promoting physical activity and health for everyone.
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MOVE Congress is one of the few conferences in the world, which focuses solely on recreational sport and physical activity.
PHYSICAL ACTIVITY MATTERS
Due to the threat of the physical inactivity ‘pandemic’ and related serious health issues, physical activity has climbed international and national political agendas. However, there is still a gap between political agendas and actions. The goals to make people more physically active can only be reached by innovative and practical solutions which we are working to implement on European level.