Youth for Youth's Mental Health through Physical Activity
January 2023 – June 2025
About HOORAY project
In the past couple of years, the mental health of young people, particularly teenagers, has been declining. The HOORAY project aims to address this challenge by exploring the impact and positive influence physical activity and sport can have on improving the overall well-being and mental health of young people.
Based on the EU Physical Activity Guidelines, HOORAY project team will collect good practices and develop educational resources and an online knowledge hub for physical education teachers, youth workers, coaches, parents and other personnel working with teens that want to put more attention on mental health and health enhancing physical activity, and prioritise participation and well-being of youth over performance, pressure and results.
Those resources and activities will target both, youngsters that are already physically active or enrolled in sport activities, and those who have been inactive and/or dropping out of sport. Young people will play a key role as we will take a closer look at physical activity through the lens of teenagers and explore how they perceive sport and its impact on their well-being.
Guide for sport clubs, youth organisations and educational institutions
This guide incorporates recommendations, which aim to ensure that sport activities for youth are beneficial to their mental health, are enjoyable, accessible, and genuinely reflective of young people’s ideas in relation to sports.
The main insights forming the basis of these recommendations were gathered through an anonymous online questionnaire targeting teenagers aged 13 to 19. Each participating country and organisation gathered responses from at least 14 teenagers who engaged in regular physical activity outside their PE classes.
Research
What works? Understanding the relationships between sport, physical activity and mental health
Compendium of practices across EU & self-review framework
Inspirational stories
SAGA
ENGSO Youth Committee member (Finland)
"I was only 12 years old when a gymnastics coach told me I was fat. I got seriously ill with an eating disorder".
ENGSO Youth Committee member Saga Yli-Hannuksela Poutanen, shares her story of recovery and empowerment through sport.
Her core message is that sport has a huge power for better or for worse, and it is responsibility to use that power right.
Podcast: sport for mental health
In line with the aim of the HOORAY project and the topic of “sport for mental health”, we recorded a podcast with Erik van Haaren, sport psychologist who is an ENGSO Youth Vice Chair and works as an advisor at the Dutch Center for Safe Sports at NOC*NSF.
Erik was interviewed by ENGSO Youth Young elegate Pedro Afonso Valente.
Interviews: youth on sport & mental health
Saskia Effert, Germany
Question: Describe how you perceive an ideal coach.
Daniel Lazar, Sweden
Question: What actions/situations make you feel happy/content while practising your physical activity or sport?
Denise Robrade, Germany
Question: Does engaging in sport activities affect your mood?
Jan Fiala, Slovakia
Question: Who is the person you trust most when it comes to sports?
Reka Molnar, Hungary
Question: Could you imagine yourself being a coach?
Chloe Jordan, UK
Question: Do you feel comfortable in sharing your feelings with the people you do sports with, including your instructor or coach?
HealthyLifestyle4all: stronger with sport
In 2021, during the Opening of the European Week of Sport, ENGSO Youth signed the European Commission’s HealthyLifestyle4all pledge, committing to promote the importance of mental and physical health-enhancing sport activities among young people, and to activate youth to become active and strengthen their mental and physical health through inclusive sport activities.
ENGSO Youth also collaborated on the European Commission’s Youth Ideas Lab initiative with was organised within the framework of the HealthyLifestlye4all initiative.
“By signing the HealthyLifestyle4All initiative, we commit to ‘work for youth from youth’ by focusing on the aspect of health which has been greatly affected during the pandemic – the mental health of young people. Our aim is to lead by example, organise inclusive sport activities and activate young people to put more focus on their mental well-being and become physically active on daily basis.”
Ugne Chmeliauskaitė, ENGSO Youth chair
Messages about mental health from youth
UGNE,
ENGSO Youth Chair
ERIK
ENGSO Youth Vice Chair
HENNI,
former ENGSO Youth Committee member
TABEA,
Young Delegate & psychologist
PEDRO,
Young Delegate & Sport Science PhD student
EVANTHIA,
young para table tennis athlete
News
Project partners
Supporting partners
