“Judo & Health” International Workshop in Granada (Spain)

From June 30 to July 4, 2025, representatives of partner institutions from Poland, Spain, Italy, Sweden, and the Czech Republic participated in an intensive four-day workshop held in Granada, Spain, as part of the Erasmus+ project JUDO – Judo as a Trigger to Shape Youth Pro-Health and Pro-Social Attitudes. The event, hosted by the Spanish project partner Inercia Digital, focused on designing and implementing innovative educational and health-promotion strategies tailored to youth judo clubs across Europe.

WSB University was represented by Prof. Olga Nowotny-Czupryna, Dr. Krzysztof Czupryna, and Project Manager Łukasz Łój. The team played a leading role in the research and development aspects of the project. On the second day of the workshop, the WSBU team presented comprehensive results from surveys and interviews, offering a detailed analysis of coaches' knowledge of healthy lifestyle principles and how these are applied in everyday training practice. These findings laid the foundation for further refinement of program content and the planning of pilot actions in each partner country.

The workshop program combined expert presentations with practical group work. Partners shared best practices related to social inclusion and health promotion within their judo clubs, collaboratively improved data collection tools for the upcoming pilots, and planned a series of six-week intervention scenarios to be implemented in their respective countries. These pilot actions — including guided physical activity, nutritional support, and peer-led health pledges — aim to reach more than 100 young people in each country.

Special attention was given to ensuring both scientific rigor and practical impact of the project results. On the third day, participants co-developed a dissemination strategy extending beyond the piloting countries and laid the groundwork for two scientific articles to be submitted to peer-reviewed international journals. Editorial responsibility for the publications was assigned to WSB University (Poland) and Inercia Digital (Spain).

In the final phase of the workshop, WSB University led sessions focused on defining the roles and responsibilities of local judo clubs, ensuring continuity of project activities, and fostering ownership of the developed materials. Discussions also addressed sustainability, long-term integration of the program in local contexts, and practical implementation challenges such as participant motivation and parental involvement.

The workshop took place within the framework of the project JUDO – Judo as a Trigger to Shape Youth Pro-Health and Pro-Social Attitudes, co-funded by the European Union under the Erasmus+ Programme – Cooperation Partnerships in Youth (KA220-YOU), implemented from March 1, 2024 to August 31, 2026 (Project No. 2023-2-PL01-KA220-YOU-000177031). The project consortium is led by WSB University (Poland) and includes PRO PATRIA SSC (Italy), Oxelösunds Judoklubb (Sweden), Inercia Digital (Spain), and Tělocvičná Jednota Sokol Praha Vršovice (Czech Republic).

The initiative is aimed at promoting healthy and socially inclusive lifestyles among teenagers practicing judo — especially those who may not be high-performing athletes, but who can become community leaders and role models for pro-health behaviors in their local environments.