MOVE

Moving people to move

The MOVE project is founded on the premise that everybody is entitled to enjoy the many benefits of physical activity regardless of who they are and where they live. With MOVE, ISCA, eight associated partners and fifteen collaborating partners will join forces to take up the challenge of promoting physical activity among socially disadvantaged groups. Taking up a challenge of this magnitude requires a cross-sector approach, which is reflected in the broad partnership behind the project as well as in the various methodologies used in the project.

The MOVE project aims to collect and qualify good practices that promote heath-enhancing physical activity among socially disadvantaged groups. In this effort, MOVE will focus on experiences that have been successful in targeting the following groups living in disadvantaged urban or rural areas with socioeconomic challenges:

• youth
• ethnic minorities and immigrants
• girls and women
• seniors

Physical activity has proven itself to be one of the single most important determinants for a healthy life. Leading authorities such as the World Health Organization (WHO) have extensively documented the positive effects of physical activity on health and quality of life. However, it has been equally well documented that inequalities in health related to physical activity are also strongly linked to socioeconomic factors such as income, education, employment and ethnicity. People who are poorer, less educated, unemployed or belonging to specific ethnic groups tend to engage less in physical activity and are less healthy.

The partner organizations in MOVE will promote the initiatives identified as good practices and use learning points from the practices as a stepping stone to developing new initiatives in the field of health-enhancing physical activity. Drawing inspiration from the collection of good practices, MOVE will implement 15 pilot projects, giving partner organizations an opportunity to generate additional learning and knowledge about promoting physical activity in socially disadvantaged groups.

Through MOVE, project partners will strengthen their capacity to design and carry out health-enhancing physical activity initiatives that focus on socially disadvantaged groups and reflect their particular needs and life situation. By identifying effective ways to target socially marginalized groups, and by building new cross-sector partnerships to underpin these efforts in concrete future projects, the MOVE project will make important contributions to the overall goal of enabling disadvantaged groups to engage more in physical activity and make healthy life style choices for themselves.

Brief overview

Period: 2011-2014
Project coordinator: Prof. Dr. Alfred Rütten
Project staff: Dr. Peter Gelius, Dr. Annika Frahsa
Sponsor: European Commission, DG Sanco