Have you ever thought about how playing football with your friends or volleyball in a local park can have a positive impact on our mental health? To this end, the SportsCom project, officially launched on 1-2 July 2025 in Brussels. Led by the Porto Metropolitan Area, the partnership brings together seven regions across Europe united by a shared goal: to help regions strengthen the health resilience of citizens by improving regional policies for inclusive, intergenerational community sports.  

Representatives from Porto Metropolitan Area (Portugal), KMOP – Policy Center ASBL (Belgium), Regional Development Agency Backa Ltd. Novi Sad (Serbia), Regional Development Fund of Attica (Greece), Krakow Metropolis Association (Poland), Municipality of Heerenveen (Netherlands) and Nyíregyháza Municipality (Hungary) exchanged unique insights and experiences on how community sport can transform lives. Through in-depth discussions, partners identified key barriers: sedentary lifestyles, limited access to sports facilities, and weak connections between sport and health policies. The first meeting provided a great opportunity to lay the ground for a constructive collaboration on improving regional policies, aiming to make community sport a regular part of daily life. A useful tool that helps address mental health issues, loneliness, and promotes intergenerational bond.

To achieve its goal, SportsCom targets five policy instruments:

• AMP 2030 Strategy and Priorities for Action
• Regional programme 2021-2027 Attiki
• The Kraków Metropolitan Area 2030 Strategy: Metropolis of Opportunities (KMA2030 Strategy) 
• Sports and Exercise policy 2017-2025, “In Heerenveen Beweegt Het”
• Territorial and Settlement Development Operational Programme Plus 

“Community sport goes beyond physical fitness,” said Orlando Leal, Project Leader at AMP. “It builds belonging, bridges generations, and addresses critical health challenges like mental illness and loneliness. This project is about changing lives through sport.”

Our journey continues with targeted activities in each participating region, including local stakeholder group meetings, policy learning events, study visits, good practices identification and thematic seminars.

Stay connected and explore with us the hidden power in fostering peoples’ mental health through community sports.

📌Facebook
 📌LinkedIn   
 📌 YouTube