Europe Direct participated in the events organized as part of the Venicemarathon, which this year welcomed 15,000 athletes for competitions on Sunday, October 23.

On Friday, Oct. 21, officially kicking off the events organized as part of the Venicemarathon was the Family Run, a non-competitive run over a course of about 3.5 kilometers that, with more than 4,000 participants, united kids, families and all those who wanted to spend a day of health and fun.

Europe Direct was present on October 21 and 22, at San Giuliano Park in Mestre, at ExpoSport, a sports and leisure fair and meeting point for marathon runners to pick up their bibs, with an institutional exhibition space distributing gadgets and information materials on European institutions and the opportunities the European Union offers to young people.

The aim of the initiative is to promote the values that the European Union attributes to Sport as an instrument of social integration and intercultural dialogue, as an opportunity to spread notions of peace, tolerance and mutual understanding.

Education and Sport represent two key areas to foster a harmonious development of young people's personality, to build models of aggregation and identification, to provide emotional and affective cues combined with symbols of belonging.

The strong and proactive message that we want to get across to young people is that of sport to be perceived as an "added and transversal competence" to enhance and harmonise those inherent values such as fair-play, overcoming oneself, team spirit, tolerance, in order to better live everyday life.

The EU intends through sport to promote educational and social values in order to spread them among all citizens, as called for in the White Paper on Sport, adopted in 2007 by the European Commission with the aim of giving strategic orientation to the role of sport in Europe, encouraging debate and raising awareness of the needs and peculiarities of the sector.

Since 2008, the Europe Direct service del Comune di Venezia has participated in sporting events dedicated to young people, such as, on this occasion, the initiatives linked to the VeniceMarathon, such as ExpoSport and Family Run.

Some photos of the event from previous years:

For information: