The fifth edition of the National Erasmus Games (NEG) will take place from the 23rd to the 25th of March in the city of Pisa.

 

This year as well Erasmus Student Network Italy will be promoting the culture of healthy lifestyle and sport, with its educational, associative and integrating values, through the National Erasmus Games, a national sport event in which the italian sections will take part.

ESN Pisa will collaborate to the organization of the 2018 edition, which will welcome more than 300 exchange students, coming from 19 italian cities.

 

Structured similarly to real Erasmus Olypmics, the NEG will see the students from sections of the italian network challenging each other in the different sports disciplines set out for the games (soccer, volley, basket and beach volley) wearing the colors of the city in which they are spending their mobility experience, which represents a second home for them, and not those of their home country.

The NEG are also the national stage of the ESN Italy project "Erasmus and Sport" whose goal is, since 2013, to spread the culture of practising one or more sports disciplines during their stay in Italy among the mobility students, aiming to build a sense of community and cultural closeness among foreign students and italian ones, thanks to the educational bridge created by sport, because - quoting the Olympic athlete Fiona May - this is "an environment in which everything is easier", even overcoming the national and linguistic borders.

 

For this edition too, the National Erasmus Games will have the patronage of the Italian National Olypmic Committee, the National Agency for the Youth and the National Institute of Documentation, Innovation and Educational Research, corporations that represent a significant goal for the association and a crucial moment for the construction of a solid collaboration and an open dialogue with the institutions.

 

Following the directives of the European Union and of the Erasmus+ programme for the promotion of sports, Erasmus Student Network Italy has always invested its efforts in the organisation of local and national sports events and projects with the aim of creating big moments of social and cultural integration for the international students living in our country.

 

But ESN Italy doesn't stop to these goals and it aims even higher: during the NEG, another international project will be implemented, ExchangeAbility, through which for years our national network has wanted to prove that Erasmus and sport are accessible to everyone. For this reason a soccer game,in collaboration with the section of Pisa of the AIPD Italian Association of People with Down Syndrome will be held, which will see the participation of international students and people with Down syndrome.

 

The Opening Press Conference of the event will take place in the Baleari Hall - in Palazzo Gambacorti of Pisa on Tuesday, March 22nd from 11:30 am and it will involve the students, the NEG Organising Committee with Marco Zeo, head of the organisation of the event, the Erasmus Student Network Italy Board with Manuela Locci, Project Manager, the University of Pisa with Francesco Marcelloni, Pro-chancellor to the Cooperation and International Relations and the City of Pisa with the Deputy Mayor Paolo Ghezzi.

Later on, in the morning of Friday, March 23rd, will take place the Opening Ceremony at the CUS, during which all the participating teams will presented and they will parade all together, divided into delegations, in a real Flag Parade, officially initiating the event. After that, the tournaments and the games will start, and they will all take place in the structures of the CUS which gave its full logistic and institutional support to the event.

 

The event will be organised with the collaboration and the support of the University of Pisa, the City of Pisa, the Tuscany Region, the Azienda della Regione Toscana per il Diritto allo Studio Universitario (DSU), the National Youth Forum (FNG), the CONI, the Youth National Agency, and of INDIRE.

The event will also be supported by Housing Anywhere, #Ready, Coldiretti Pisa, Education First, Flixbus and Acqua della Salute Uliveto, Devitalia Telecomunicazioni and by the local partners Chicchessia - Lounge bar, Ristorante Pizzeria Le Scuderie, La Ghiotteria and Campagna Amica.