Boxe For Change (B4C) is a multi-year international project, approved by the European Union, led by the Italian Boxing Federation, along with Scholas, a non-profit organization created by Pope Francis, which is particularly important and active in Latin American countries and Spain, and the Romanian Boxing Federation (FRB). Two external resources have also been involved in the project due to their expertise, Sport Without Borders, and Eurocube. B4C will involve 60 institutions in Spain, Italy, and Romania, including some juvenile correctional facilities, with the aim of combating the slow and steady youth disengagement from sports, accelerated by the 2020 pandemic, which particularly affected younger age groups. The mission of this project is precisely to address, through boxing, the decline in insufficient physical activity, which, as emphasized by a WHO study, already affected young people aged 11-16 before the COVID-19 pandemic.
The project will involve over 2000 students (1000 in Italy, 500 in Spain, and 500 in Romania), 80 trained and involved coaches (40 Italians, 20 Spaniards, and 20 Romanians), 40 physical education teachers (20 from Italy, 10 from Romania, and 10 from Spain), 35 high schools, and 5 juvenile detention centers.
- By the end of November, a draft of the coach and teacher training program defined by SSF and Scholas will be created. In the first half of December 2023, the FPI will need to approve the coach and teacher training program.
- By the end of January 2024, the training program will be finalized (including editing activities, etc.) and uploaded to the e-learning platform. At the end of February, the coach and teacher training program will conclude.
- In spring, during the months of March, April, and May, the didactic phase of the project will take place, where instructors will transfer the knowledge they have acquired on the e-learning platform to their students. They will also need to provide continuous updates.
- September, October, November, the first trimester of the next school year, will be dedicated to meetings with the champion, constituting an experiential phase where young people will interact with a champion who will seek to share their experiences with them.
- Following the meeting with the champion, schools will participate in a contest, which will be evaluated later. It is a video contest organized within the participating schools. Essentially, schools will need to produce short videos. This is the #B4CWITHBOXINGYOULEARN VIDEO CONTEST: Young people who participate in the training activity and the workshop/meeting with the Champions will showcase their experience through short videos made with their smartphones. Each participating class will then prepare a single video by collecting and editing the individual videos made by the students. The class that presents the best video will then participate in the March Camp. Therefore, this is an ongoing activity that must be organized and carried out concurrently with the training activities and the workshop/meeting with the Champions.
- The project for schools will conclude with the Spring Camp, which will be held in March 2025, where the winning schools of the contest will participate.
