We are delighted to share that we had a chance to attend a Kick-off meeting of the project “Mermaids for Inclusion” in the city of Veria, Greece on January 14th. BRAVO Director, Ismail Sehic and Amra Arapovic , as swimming coach from Sarajevo based swimming club “Speed”. This was a chance for the partners coming from 4 different countries to come together and set initial plans for the project implementation. Partner countries within this project are Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Greece and Kosovo.
Some of the key results of the project will be a production of educational materials on the topic of social inclusion through sport, creation of Mermaids for Inclusion swimming courses but also the establishment of finswimming as a sport in Bosnia and Herzegovina and Kosovo. During the kick-off meeting the partners visited the Public swimming pool of Naousa, a small provincial city nearby Veria, where the partners of Komet, Otrila and Bravo demonstrated the techniques of finswimming.
The project “Mermaids for inclusion” introduces finswimming as a method of inclusion of people with mental and physical disability and people of ethnic minorities to the European society, while promoting the importance of gender equality. The length of the project is 2 years which will ensure enough time to set foundation for finswimming in partner countries.
The specific 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.