Students participating at the Argentinian Volunteer Leaders AcademyFISU continues to support its National University Sports Federation (NUSF) members in their own development and in growing university sport around the world. Since 2019 numerous projects have been undertaken to meet these objectives and with the call now out for new projects for 2022 and 2023, more exciting initiatives are expected.

In speaking to the programme’s objectives, FISU Acting President Leonz Eder said “By introducing direct support to the NUSF as our members, we want to specifically promote individual projects and thus actively accompany the development of the university sports associations concerned. This may involve, for example, an activation of the cooperation between NUSF’s, their stakeholders and FISU, an assistance in implementing educational activities, the realisation of the strategies of the NUSF’s or the establishment of a cooperation platform to allow the NUSF to organise projects with FISU support, to name just a few of the objectives.”

Over the last three years this cooperation between FISU and NUSFs has generated projects that have met the programme’s objectives while delivering significant value in specific countries and wider regions. Here are outlines of some of the projects.

Since 2017, Argentina and FISU America has seen 158 young leaders attend over the course of five editions of the Argentinean Volunteer Leaders Academy. The most recent focused its young participants on how to organise sporting events. Director of Institutional Relations for the University Sports Federation of Argentina (FeDUA) Tatiana Alonso said “For FeDUA it is very important that year after year we can continue to develop this meeting point that is essential for young volunteer leaders, since we seek to replicate the values of FISU and University Sports so that they can be the ones who take the lead. . . .“

Mongolian students at the International Day of University Sport (IDUS)Mongolia also focused on education, to its stakeholders on the FISU movement, while implementing a programme for the development of university sport among universities. Executive Director of the NUSF, Mrs. Erdenetuya Ch. said, “In the past, we were celebrating IDUS (International Day of University Sport) September 20 by organising only sports competitions. But last year was different because the event was educational.” An example of this education, Purevbat D., a student from the National Physical Education Institute, presented research on the issue of the family names and sports application forms and noted, “. . . at international sports events, Mongolian athletes are always called their names of the fathers, not the names of the athlete. Therefore, I offered to organise and systematize these issues.”

Niger, a FISU member since 2013, in partnership with Benin planned a seminar on the problem of financing the university sport movement and its activities. This project worked to identify how to mobilise financial resources to ensure better and proper operation of the NUSF and also to do the same with the sports associations of universities and major schools in the country. This important work supports alignment within Niger to ensure all organisations affiliated with university sport are properly resourced and can effectively move forward with their respective mandates.

A conference and series of seminars were built around the 25th anniversary of the Armenian Students Sports Federation, in part to bring together leaders inPresident of the Armenian Student Sports Federation Hovhannes Gabrielyan the building of a new university sport strategy. Arising from the conference was a plan for the creation of at least one sport club at each of 20 member universities to enhance sport opportunities. More recently, President of the NUSF Hovhannes Gabrielyan reflected, “After these projects, our federation began to work more actively with universities and national federations of sports exoduses. 20 memorand[a] of cooperation were signed. And more than 10,000 students during [these] years are participating in our projects and national university games.”

While Armenia’s project focused on sport and strategy, a pilot study and project in Finland, with support from Sweden, were conducted for heart rate variability analytics of university students’ stress, recovery, and exercise. This work was done with first year students and with two aims. The first was to direct students towards physical activity and opportunities in which to participate, such as IDUS and freshman’s camp. The other objective was to see students selected for participation in the study become ambassadors for university sport in Finland.

A final example of successful projects is about NUSF executives of Eastern Africa attending a workshop on the implementation of integrated and sustainable development for university sport across the region. This was led by Uganda but with involvement from the Federation of African University Sports (FASU), Kenya, Tanzania, Rwanda, and Burundi. Not only did this propel development and growth in Eastern Africa but it presented a model of integration and cooperation for other regions of Africa.

These examples of great initiatives demonstrate how countries are impacted by such projects since the start of the programme. With the application now out for new proposals to FISU, it leads to great anticipation of new projects that can further the growth and development of university sport around the world.

WRITTEN BY DOUG MCLEAN