UEFA EURO 2012

Respect Your Health – Euroschools 2012 – was the official community health education programme for UEFA EURO 2012.

The project promoted healthy lifestyle with a focus on smoking prevention, healthy diets, moderation in alcohol consumption, and physical activity engaging over 10,000 young people and their parents in Poland and Ukraine.

The programme was coordinated by sports development organisation streetfootballworld, and supported by a host of partners including the European Healthy Stadia Network and World Heart Federation.

Based on a ‘train the trainer’ approach, local institutions and NGOs in the eight UEFA EURO 2012 host cities were empowered to activate their communities and promote good health. Healthy Stadia developed a toolkit and series of training modules to skill up local ‘activators’ such as coaches, teachers and community leaders on how to use the power of football and other sports to engage communities, increase health literacy levels and establish a common feeling of ownership for community sports grounds.

The project culminated in early August with a ‘European Youth Camp’ when children from all 53 UEFA nations gathered in Wroclaw, Poland, for 4 days of intercultural exchange, health awareness, football and fun.

Healthy Stadia also worked with UEFA on protecting fans from the dangers of second hand smoke by declaring EURO 2012 a ‘tobacco-free’ tournament. In practice, this meant that smoking was not permitted anywhere within tournament stadia and fan zones, whilst the sale and promotion of tobacco products was also prohibited.

The decision to ban tobacco for the first time at the European Football Championships was the culmination of 18 months partnership work between the European Healthy Stadia Network, World Heart Federation, the World Health Organisation and UEFA.

For more information about the UEFA EURO 2012 Euroschools project and the activities undertaken in Poland and Ukraine, click the button opposite to download the programme toolkit.