SALTO Awards aims at recognizing work well done and inspire young people, European citizens, decision-makers and applicants of Erasmus+ and European Solidarity Corps to have a greater impact. The 2023 SALTO Awards categories are:
•    Digital Transformation
•    Environment & Fight Against Climate Change (New!)
•    Inclusion & Diversity
•    Participation in Democratic Life
•    Solidarity & Volunteering
Special mention: Competence Development

#SMILE initiative – Sport, Motivation, Inclusion, Leadership, Engagement, which is co-funded by the Erasmus+ programme of the European Union aims to analyse the link between sport and inclusion in an innovative and different way – by ensuring international participation in sport activities of persons with intellectual disabilities. #SMILE project team implemented various national and international actions, empowering the European identity and competence development of people with intellectual disabilities in Bulgaria and Croatia and the efforts has been highlighted through special mention in the Competence Development category of the European awards of SALTO 2023.  

Special Mention Competence Development is a category, supporting lifelong learning and fostering the development of competencies, through the engagement of different stakeholders of the field.

SALTO wish to honour the impact of European youth programmes on supporting lifelong learning and fostering competence development, engaging different stakeholders of the field. The awards team were looking for inspirational projects where young people, youth workers, representatives of organisations and other involved parties are encouraged to reflect on their learning journey and competence development. When evaluating the projects, selection commission was particularly interested in practices and approaches to support and accompany the learning processes and development of young participants and youth work practitioners.

SMILE HAS DEVELOPED THE FOLLOWING OUTPUTS TO ACHIEVE THE PROJECT AIMS:

• Good practices toolkit edition #SMILE: https://inclusivesport.org/2023/06/13/good-practices-smile-toolkit/
• Empowered sport experts and organizations that will continue utilizing the tools that #SMILE developed in the project framework and onwards;
• Delivered international sport event #SMILE that gathered persons with intellectual disabilities from Bulgaria and Croatia after set of national trainings sessions in each country.

THROUGH THE PROJECT ACTIVITIES, WE AIM TO EMPOWER PERSONS WITH INTELLECTUAL DISABILITIES TO:

• Discover the power of sport as an inclusion mechanism through personal experience;
• Co-create together with the partners experts a good practices tool-kit of Inclusion through sport for persons with intellectual disability and/or mental health challenges;
• Take part in an international sport event #SMILE;
• Implement local training sessions with the persons with intellectual disability and/or mental health challenges in order to ensure snowfall effect;
• Ensure good practices transfer between project partners.

#SMILE project is totally in line with the horizontal objectives, pursued by the Erasmus+ Programme, that is co-funding the present initiative, aiming to ensure inclusion and diversity in all fields of education, training, youth and sport as the project idea itself is a representation of the inclusion of a highly disadvantage group into international activities. The project is in line as well with the priority of encouraging participation in sport and physical activity as all the actions that #SMILE implemented were focused on sustainable involvement of persons with intellectual disabilities in sport activities on local, national and international level. #SMILE is implemented by Bulgarian Sports Development Association and Rijeka sports association for persons with disabilities, organizations providing #BeInclusive opportunities for Bulgaria and Croatia.

More information about #SMILE initiative is available at project webpage: www.inclusivesport.org