No matter if you play sports alone, as a form of training for your well being or for a race preparation, or if you compete with another athlete individually or as part of a team for fun or to win the championship, all sport practices are based on the pleasure of running, playing, sweating to reach your goal in competition with the others, but having respect for persons.

We strongly believe that playing sports, doing basic physical excercise within schools, sports centers, in the parks or in the streets is a key element of a good lifestyle within every community: indeed, it represents an essential part of a healthy education of young people, as well as a good way both to provide leisure time for adults and to keep the elderly active.

In this spirit, every day of the year, in a country very far from yours, we are committed to ensuring that the citizens of all Italian cities, women and men of all ages and social backgrounds are able to play sports.

You don’t need big or sophisticated sport and fitness facilities.

You need instead experienced organizers and teachers, the willingness of the institutions in charge and the pleasure to take a challenge from all those that are involved.

Cities can be and have to become a place where people can play sports and share experiences in order  to build a new citizens’ awareness.

Sport shouldn’t be just a means to gain approvals or to get the media attention. It is not even a nice ritual able to ensure participation.

Sport, but mainly sport practice, is an element of self growth that has to accompany people’s lives, from the childhood to the old age.

Sport is respect for yourself and for the others. It led up to sharing emotions and experiences both with your fellows and with different people, coming from your country or from abroad.

Sport is respect for the environment that surrounds us: the Earth, the air and the water should be protected as much as the work and a safe work, as well as the respect for all the religious beliefs and, in general, for human being represent a civil growth opportunity for a society struck by the war.

Sport is an essential means for every society to stress its own traditions, its culture and its level of civilization.

This might seem to many people just a rhetorical speech, pronounced  by someone that today is faraway, in a safe place. But our commitment for years now to the realization of a sporting event, such as the Erbil Marathon or SAV within the University of Baghdad, organized in strong cooperation with the working groups set up in different Iraqi cities, shows all our desire to make people understand that playing sports represent a form of emancipation for everyone.

It should not serve any other purpose, it has not less dignity than any other social or cultural issue or activity. That’s why we think that it shouldn’t be just an opening or closing moment for another event. This is the reason why we feel sorry about the lacking attention given to sport also within the ISF program.

But we believe that time will prove that we are right and with the commitment of all, we will realize our purposes, making the most of the opportunities that we have today and that we hope will become experiences entrenched among citizens.

We are close to your efforts and we would like to thank in particular the Rector of the University of Baghdad for the involvement and openness proved until now.

dott. Nicola Visconti President of ASD SPORT AGAINST VIOLENCE ITALY

prof Giuseppe D’Agostino President of ASD Università Popolare dello Sport ROME