![](https://www.vfu.bg/assets/userfiles/Novini/01-06-2024/ppvwupblqein2puu47lu-768x403%20(1).png)
Varna Free University "Chernorizets Hrabar" will host training under the Sports Coach+ project, organised by the Bulgarian Olympic Committee (BOC) and the Bulgarian Red Cross (BRC). It is expected to include coaches in over 10 types of sports from Varna and the region who work with refugees and/or children and youth at risk.
The event will be opened on 10 July 2024, at 9:30 am in Hall 3 of the University's Educational and Sports Complex by Belcho Goranov - Secretary General of the BOK and Assoc. Prof. Eleonora Tankova, PhD - Deputy Rector of VFU "Chernorizets Hrabar ".
Before the start of the initiative, a photo exhibition "From Paris to Paris" dedicated to the upcoming Summer Olympic Games in the French capital will be opened at Varna Free University.
The Sports Coach+ project is an initiative of the Olympic Foundation for Refugees of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and is implemented by the International Red Cross and the relevant National Olympic Committees in eight countries. Its main aim is to support the mental health and psychosocial well-being of young people (10-24 years old) through sport. The project will provide sports coaches with the knowledge, skills and techniques to create a safe and supportive sports environment and to recognise and respond to trauma in an informed way. The acquired skills will be able to be applied when working with children and youth at risk, as well as with other marginalised groups.
In addition to Bulgaria through BOK, the project partners are Poland, Romania, the Czech Republic, Moldova, Germany, Ukraine and Slovakia. In his speech to the participants of the Global Forum on Refugees, which took place in Geneva in December 2023, IOC President Thomas Bach expressed his gratitude to the eight countries that support this important initiative for the committee, through which they join the Global Commitment for Sport for inclusion and protection, supported by many other countries and organizations. "The initiative corresponds with the Olympic ideals, with the principles of humanism, bequeathed to us more than a century ago by Pierre De Coubertin and his associates," said Stefka Kostadinova - BOC president and member of the IOC Commission on Culture and Olympic Heritage, at the launch of the project in Bulgaria in March this year.