Športom za duševné zdravie detí (Mental welfare of children through sport)

‘Mental welfare of children through sport’ has been running as a project since 2005. Its main focus is on organization of sporting events and extracurricular activities for pupils of primary schools. In upper years, the project is complemented by a program focusing on crime prevention and skills development in terms of IT.

In collaboration with thirty-five schools, we try to draw children to sports in order to fill their free time with activities that can develop their physique and thinking via upholding the principles of fair play. We try to counter the growing trend of children finding interest in drugs, alcohol and cigarettes with sport in the background.

Historically, sport fulfils the role of developing a healthy physique as well as a balanced psychological state. The first ever sports (eg hunting and running) emerged out of the need to survive, but today people do sports to stay healthy and enjoy themselves. Even though these benefits listed are well-known, we still encounter an increasingly popular trend of young people looking for fun elsewhere, for example by seeking out drugs, alcohol or criminal offences.

The media is also offering a rather biased view of the issue. Usually only the best athletes are promoted because of how much they earn. Only rarely do we find out how they became as good as they are today, how much time and effort they must have invested. Very little is written about Slovak champions and even less if anything at all is written about regional or school successes.

Young people therefore idealize almost unachievable role models and when they come to realize that they will not ever approach the people their idols, they succumb to indifference and adopt a negative attitude.

Except for sport, culture helps nurture the mind of the individual too. However, recently the most popular kind of culture has become the cliché “cheap” culture, the subtext of which implicitly creates a propaganda for violence, drugs and street gangs.

We have been considering which children give in to drugs, alcohol, cigarettes and criminality. With all these children there was one common aspect: that of an unstable mind and distorted personality.

Contact:
Športový klub polície Bratislava,
sekretariat@skpba.sk, www.skpbratislava.sk

The project started in 2005 and is still running.
Last review: September 2015.