From April 19th – April 21st, 2024, the project consortium for the “Mermaids for Inclusion” project met in Pristina, Kosovo for the Second Midterm Transnational Project Meeting. BRAVO members Ezana Ćeman and Yllka Totaj were joined by their partners from Finswimming Team “KOMET” from Croatia, AKADIMOS KEK from Greece, and hosted by Swim Club “OTRILA” from Kosovo.
The Second Midterm Transnational Project Meeting included the following activities: monitoring measures and control reports, evaluation of the course for coaches, evaluation of preparation activities and set-up phase for implementation of the training process, preparation of the upcoming multiplier sport event, and dissemination and communication-related activities.
On Saturday April 20th, we started off our day at Zenit High School outside of Pristina to attend a swimming session with the swimmers from Swim Club “OTRILA”. After spending two hours teaching the swimmers about finswimming and having them try out the sport, we moved forward with meeting about the state of the project and next steps. From revision of deliverables to preparation of our upcoming final event in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina, great strides were made in relation to the “Mermaids for Inclusion” project.
On Sunday April 21st, we started off our day with a session on next steps and responsibilities for each of the partners followed by finalizing a sustainability plan for the project. Exciting mobilities are coming your way and we cannot wait to bring together great competitors from Bosnia and Herzegovina, Greece, Croatia, and Kosovo to Sarajevo this September. Stay tuned for more details!
ABOUT THE PROJECT
The goal of the project “Mermaids for Inclusion” is to establish finswimming as a new sport in Bosnia and Herzegovina and Kosovo and to use the sports environment to promote awareness raising and inclusion regarding gender equality as well as integration of ethnic and religious minorities.
This will be achieved through advanced education tools and the transfer of good practice from the participating Member States (Croatia and Greece). Sport activities are a strong means for inclusion and cohesive societies, since sport can create a healthy and supportive environment for socially vulnerable groups and local communities to meet and interact. This is especially important in the region of Western Balkans with ongoing challenges regarding the inclusion of ethnic and religious minorities. The project also aims at advancing gender equality which is a relevant topic for the whole region of the Balkans which is traditionally dominated by patriarchal gender norms. In Bosnia and Herzegovina and in Kosovo there is still a dominating stereotype of women’s roles being mainly family-oriented and caretaking rather than actively participating in public life and business. The project will have a great impact not only on coaches, athletes and participating organizations that will be directly involved in the project, but also on wider community and relevant stakeholders by setting a model for good practice of using sport as a means for social integration. Fin swimming is a sport that uses bifins or a monofin.
The monofin or “mermaid’s tail” makes the fin swimmers often associated with mermaids and it allows them to swim approximately 12-15 times faster compared to normal classic sports swimming. For that reason it can be very attractive for dissemination activities and for attracting newcomers to the sport.