Sport is a key tool to promote social and personal values such as team spirit, discipline, perseverance and fair play. Sport can also boost knowledge, motivation and skills: mens sana in corpore sano.

Of course, for a sport activity to have real and concrete value, the work of the trainers, coaches and teachers plays an essential role, and providing them with the theoretical framework, the skills and the evidence base to do their work effectively is vitally important. 

Anyway, Education Through Sport is one of the grandest usages of sport. Physical activity and social recreational sport provide value by themselves for each of us taking part. But utilising the situations and settings of sport and physical activity for learning processes adds a valuable dimension– in fact, it adds both value and values.

Non-formal education of young people has been taking more and more space in the field of education in the last decades in Europe. It has proved to be very efficient in developing different social skills of young people from children to young adults and above. It complements formal education and, in certain situations, it even replaces it. 

INSPIRE, through a path that explores Olympism with its language full of positive values, aims to use Sport in an educational key to develop skills in young people in different fields of life: social inclusion and discrimination, cultural diversity and conflict resolution, human rights, participation and active citizenship, environment and sustainable development.

School and sports groups can easily become learning communities for these areas of life, that is, they can transform sports activities into experiential learning programs for young people, creating added values

The symbols and ceremonies, sports and cultural events of the Olympic Games are inspiring and motivational. They will provide a relevant context for learning and teaching activities, and for promoting sport and physical activity. 

The universal language of Olympism may be regarded as a “vehicle of hope”: striving for excellence, demonstrating respect and celebrating friendship are aimed at encouraging people to get on better and thus promoting peace.