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I-PLAY relies on local organisations that contribute facilities, people and roots: Kroma in Errenteria already, with partners planned in Oiartzun, Errenteria and Ankara.
A European project changes nothing while it remains on paper. I-PLAY relies on local organisations that contribute facilities, people and local roots. We are already working with one — Kroma, a crafts and social education association in Errenteria — and three further partnerships are foreseen in the project design: the municipal sports departments of Oiartzun and Errenteria, and a sports federation in Ankara.
An associated organisation is not paid: it brings the ground to play on
In European funding calls, some organisations manage budget and others accompany the project without receiving any funding from it. We call the latter associated organisations. They do not sign up to a share of the money: they sign up to an intention to work together.
What they contribute is exactly what money cannot buy. A sports hall open on a Saturday morning. A list of families who already trust the club. A youth leader who knows the neighbourhood and calls people by their first names.
Without them, training stays in the classroom. With them, twelve documented traditional games land in a real town square, with real people, on a real day.
The Basque Country: Kroma, Oiartzun and Errenteria
The project design includes the municipal sports departments of Oiartzun and Errenteria as associated organisations, with a defined role: supporting the organisation of local sports events and festivals. This partnership is planned but not yet formalised.
The organisation we already work with on a stable basis is Kroma, in Errenteria, under a flexible collaboration framework. It has a recognised track record in handmade play, non-formal education and community participation, working with families, adults and children in the town.
During the kick-off meeting on 12 and 13 March 2026, the whole consortium visited Kroma in Errenteria. There we filmed two videos, which we published on our Facebook page on 17 March.
In the months that followed we set out the terms of the collaboration: Kroma contributes its technical and educational expertise to the design and review of project materials, takes part in the agreed coordination meetings, and helps co-design and run community traditional games days aimed at young people and vulnerable groups.
What Kroma brings to the table is not just a signature: it is its inventory of games, its creative workshops and a way of working with the community that cannot be improvised from an office.
Türkiye: bringing the training into federation programmes
In Türkiye the challenge is different. There is a strong federation ecosystem and genuine recognition of traditional games as cultural heritage, but almost no bridge between that recognition and the education system.
That is why the project plans to bring on board a sports federation in Ankara as an associated organisation, with a specific goal: integrating I-PLAY training into national coach education programmes. The specific organisation is yet to be confirmed.
The value of this route lies in its scale: whatever enters a national federation programme reaches clubs across the country without having to repeat the training one club at a time.
The first test comes from 7 to 11 September 2026 in Biga, with the training of trainers for participants from the three countries. It will produce people able to replicate the workshops in their own regions.
Poland: reaching schools and youth leisure
Our transnational State of the Art report was unequivocal: in Poland, traditional sports and games are entirely absent from the national curriculum and from teacher training. Their transmission depends on local initiatives and on non-formal education actors.
There, the way in is twofold: schools and youth leisure organisations. Our partner in Kraków has been tasked with opening up those partnerships.
And let us be honest: the specific schools and organisations are still to be confirmed.
How to get involved: what we are looking for and what we offer
You don't need to be a large organisation or have previous European experience. We are looking for:
Local councils and municipal sports departments with their own facilities and calendar
Grassroots sports clubs willing to try games that are not their own
Schools keen to bring heritage into physical education lessons
Youth, migrant, women's or disability associations that already have an active group
And this is what we bring to the table:
Twelve game sheets with historical context, step-by-step instructions, safety notes and adaptations for people with disabilities, migrants or refugees and gender equality
Free training for your team, with hour-and-a-half online workshops that fit into an afternoon
Free, open access to the project platform, already online at i-play.abarka.org, with its training centre and its games library under construction
Visibility in our publications and in the European network of Traditional Sports Ambassadors that we are building
Get in touch and let's explore a partnership
Our target is more than 500 participants and 10 grassroots sports organisations across three countries. That number is not reached from an office: it is reached neighbourhood by neighbourhood, with whoever already holds the keys to the sports hall.
If your organisation fits any of the profiles above, contact us via www.abarka.org and we will look at it with you, with no obligation. A half-hour conversation is enough to know whether it makes sense.