Innovation: NowWeMOVE
International
AAI Domains:
Independent, healthy and secure living (physical exercise)
Participation in society (voluntary activities, social connectedness)
It is a feature of contemporary life that the majority of adults lead sedentary lifestyles with not enough physical activity for healthy ageing. The risk to public health of physical inactivity across Europe is estimated to have surpassed that posed by smoking tobacco with an estimated 500,000 premature deaths per year attributed to lack of physical activity due to a myriad of causes including heart disease, cancer and stroke.
It is also estimated that the costs of physical inactivity are approximately €80 billion per year across Europe due to higher health care spending and indirect costs to the economy and wider society. However, it is important to realise that the many health conditions attributable to physical inactivity are not inevitable and can be changed through a variety of measures including socially innovative projects.
An ambitious and large-scale social innovation based in Copenhagen is NowWeMOVE (NWM) which started in 2012 and their aime was to get 100 million more Europeans active in sport and physical activity by 2020. NWM has had the financial support of the European Union and a range of corporate partners including the European Cycling Federation and the International Sports and Culture Association, the global platform for promoting sport for all with 180 member organisations worldwide.
It is estimated that around two thirds of the adult population do not meet the recommended guidelines of 30 minutes per day on five days in each week so persuading tens of millions of people to be more active was a colossal challenge. MOVE week started in 2012 as NWM’s flagship event across Europe to promote physical activity and involved MOVE agents in communities registering their event on the official website.
In 2012 this involved 250 MOVE agents organising 120 events in 23 countries that attracted an estimated 140,000 participants. By 2015 this had grown to 2,917 MOVE agents organising 7,125 events in 38 European countries with over 1,800,000 participants. The aim was to make MOVE week in 2016 (29 September 29 – 5 October) a larger event.
MOVE agents can be individuals, sports club, voluntary groups, a company or a municipality who registered at MOVEWeek.eu and can use the toolkits, posters and promotional material for a wide range of events that encouraged people to try a new sport or recreational physical activity. Building capacity for physical activity is vital to getting more people to be physically active, so in 2013 NWM introduced MOVE Transfer which aims to scale up and transfer good examples of grassroots sports initiatives both nationally and internationally. Initiatives that are aimed at hard to reach population such as young people with difficult backgrounds, ethnic minorities, older people, people with disabilities and women and girls are particularly valued.
NWM also introduced MOVE Quality as a year-long accreditation process based on evaluation research of the initiative, building partnerships to sustain and scale up successful projects and developing the next wave of MOVE agents. NWM also declared an annual Europe-wide ‘No Elevators Day’ and they have encouraged and supported MOVE agents to hold FlashMOVE events with choreographed group performances to raise awareness of MOVE Week and the wider campaign.
There is also an annual MOVE Congress that attracts more than 300 grassroots sports organisations to focus on increasing participation in recreational sport and physical activity. There are also MOVE Awards to recognise the achievements of the many organisations who have taken part and to build positive media attention for the wider NowWeMOVE campaign.
In relation to active ageing, NWM is primarily concerned with increasing the level of physical exercise among people of all ages. Recreational sports clubs are based on the voluntary efforts of people to organise events so NWM is also relevant to increasing voluntary activities. It is also likely to have positive effects on social connections as the vast majority of events and physical exercise involves participating in groups.