From 7 to 11 September 2026, trainers from Spain, Türkiye and Poland meet in Biga to learn how to teach traditional sports and games, and to form the team that will train 100+ educators.
From 7 to 11 September 2026, we meet in Biga, in the province of Çanakkale (Türkiye). Trainers from Spain, Türkiye and Poland are gathering there for a week (with three intensive working days) to learn how to teach traditional sports and games. This group will become the team that goes on to train more than 100 educators.
Training that multiplies
Training a small group may seem modest for a project that aims to involve more than 500 participants. But a training of trainers is not measured by who is in the room; it is measured by what happens afterwards.
Everyone who leaves Biga will go home with a clear task: to run local workshops and bring traditional games into schools, clubs and youth centres in their area. That is the cascade effect, and it is why we are devoting an entire week to this group.
The maths is simple. A group of trainers in September, each one launching workshops in their own community over the following months, is the most realistic route to our goal of training more than 100 educators, youth workers and coaches across the three countries.
There is a second, less visible effect: this group will form the core of the European network of Traditional Sports Ambassadors that we want to leave up and running when the project ends in July 2027.
The week, day by day
The group arrives on 7 September and leaves on 11 September. In between come three intensive working days, from 8 to 10 September, during which each partner presents, tests and films its games. This is the final programme agreed with BIGA:
7 September: arrivals. Welcome of the Spanish and Polish delegations in Biga.
8 September: the games on the table. Welcome, presentation and testing of each partner's training content and games, plus a technical session on how to achieve and measure the highest quality of results.
9 September: from paper to pitch. Putting the games into practice and filming a video of each game, with a technical session in the afternoon.
10 September: practice and craft. More hands-on practice and filming, and tips for trainers from BIGA.
11 September: wrap-up and departures. Risk assessment and action planning, evaluation of the training and closing session before the journeys home.
The thinking behind these days is the same as the thinking behind our curriculum: nobody comes here to listen and take notes. We play, facilitate, observe and correct, because anyone who is going to teach a game needs to have led it in front of a real group first.
Biga, Çanakkale: home to this training
The host is BIGA GELİŞİM SPOR KULÜBÜ, our partner in Türkiye and coordinator of the entire training programme. Biga is a district of the province of Çanakkale, in the north-west of the country, known for its relaxed atmosphere and lively local culture.
The project's starting point is that many traditional games are disappearing across Europe because of modernisation, a lack of structured educational programmes and declining community participation. That gap between heritage and everyday educational practice is exactly what this training aims to start closing.
How we have prepared the week
None of this is improvised in August. September's training builds on months of work that has already been completed:
Infopack for participants, with practical information on getting to Biga from Istanbul, accommodation, currency, weather and what to pack.
Participant selection finalised by the three partners: five people from Spain, five from Poland and the Biga host team, with local participants.
Transnational logistics coordinated between Oiartzun, Kraków and Biga: travel, transfers and accommodation.
Training materials built on our common curriculum template.
The 12 game sheets, already completed in English, four per country, as the working basis for the whole week.
Those twelve game sheets are the raw material of the training. Each one includes the cultural and historical background of the game, step-by-step instructions, safety notes, learning outcomes and inclusive adaptations designed for people with disabilities, for migrants and for working with a gender perspective.
In Biga, those game sheets stop being documents and become real sessions, with questions, mistakes and adjustments on the fly. It is the only way to find out whether they really work.
Follow the week from wherever you are
If you are interested in traditional games, inclusion or working with young people, this is the week to watch: a group of trainers learning to teach something that will go on to reach hundreds of people.
We will cover the training day by day, with photos, videos and the voices of the group itself. Follow us at linktr.ee/abarkaongd and on Instagram @abarkaongd, and find the materials at i-play.abarka.org.