ENGSO Youth at Lithuanian Sport Forum
ENGSO Youth Chair Ugnė Chmeliauskaitė and ENGSO Youth Secretariat, Lithuanian Union of Sport Federations and its General Secretary Ringa Baltrusaite, participated in the Lithuanian Sport Forum, which took place on Thursday, 6 February 2025, and was co-organised by the Lithuanian Olympic Committee.
The forum brought together key stakeholders from the Lithuanian sports community, including Speaker of Seimas Mr Saulius Skvernelis, the Vice Minister of Education, Science, and Sport Mr Giedrius Grybauskas, National Olympic Committee of Lithuania President Ms Daina Gudzinevičiūtė, the FIBA Europe President Mr Jorge Garbajosa, Director of the Dutch Association of Sports and Municipalities Mr Andre de Jeu, Special Adviser to the Danish Olympic Committee and Sports Federation Mr Bjorn Rothaus and leaders of various national and international sports federations, as well as athletes and physical activity advocates.
Ugne shared her reflections: “It is always interesting to hear the challenges of the Lithuanian sport community in comparison with European work ENGSO Youth is focusing on. For better or worse, so many of them are very similar – questions about the Physical education (PE) classes, not only on the number of them, but also the quality, especially knowing that most of the classes in the early age are implemented by teachers, not coaches and/or trainers. Moreover, lack of coaches and/or trainers for schools, sport clubs and non-governmental organisations promoting physical activity and healthy lifestyle. Moving on – lack of financial mechanisms and priority on the government’s agenda for sport (especially, grassroots). Keeping in mind the needs for the athletes – from education to support mental well-being. Well, let’s admit that questions about the infrastructure were also on the list. Glad to hear that ambition to improve is there, especially with focusing on the National Sport plan and the strategic way forward.”
As an ENGSO member organisation, the Lithuanian Union of Sports Federations (LSFS) and its Secretary General Ringa Baltrušaitė actively supported the discussions within the Lithuanian sports community with a goal of establishing a National Sport Plan.
On this occasion, we are also thrilled to congratulate ENGSO Youth Chair Ugnė Chmeliauskaitė on her election to the Executive Board of the Lithuanian Hockey Federation for the 2025–2028 term! With a strong commitment to education and development, Ugne aims to amplify youth voices in sports governance, an initiative ENGSO Youth fully supports.
One of the key topics discussed at the forum was youth mental health. We are pleased that our Hooray project contributed to these discussions by exploring solutions to strengthen safeguarding mechanisms for young people in sports.
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