Ta strona nie jest jeszcze dostępna w Twoim języku. Wyświetlamy wersję angielską.
From 7 to 11 September 2026, more than 15 people from Spain, Poland and Türkiye met in Biga to present, test and film traditional games, and to learn how to teach them.
From 7 to 11 September 2026, Biga (Çanakkale, Türkiye) became I-PLAY's shared playground. More than 15 people from Spain, Poland and Türkiye spent three intensive days presenting, testing and filming traditional games, and learning how to teach them. The evaluation of the training is already under way, and the consortium is preparing the project's Mid-Term Review, scheduled to take place in Biga on 26 and 27 November 2026.
A week months in the making
The training of trainers, I-PLAY's first major international gathering since the kick-off meeting in Donostia in March, had been in the calendar for months. Its format was agreed at the kick-off meeting: one week in Biga, with five participants per organisation and local participants provided by the host club.
Before travelling, the three partners met online on 3 September for a preparatory meeting to resolve any questions, and Biga Gelişim Spor Kulübü, our host partner, shared the final programme, the logistical information and the preparations for the play area. Each delegation travelled with its four traditional games ready to present.
Three days to play, observe and correct
The programme was built around a simple idea: anyone who is going to teach a game needs to have led it in front of a real group first.
Day one: the games on the table. After the welcome, each partner presented its training content and its games, which were tested as a group. The afternoon technical session focused on a key question: how to achieve and measure the highest quality of results.
Day two: from paper to pitch. The games from all three countries were put into practice and filmed, forming the basis of the audiovisual materials that will feed into the training platform.
Day three: practice and craft. More play, more filming and a session of tips for trainers led by the Biga team: how to explain, how to correct, how to manage a diverse group.
Closing. The final day was devoted to risk assessment and action planning for the upcoming activities, and to evaluating the training itself.
And so lokotxak, rana (the frog toss) and the fishing game shared the same pitch with mendil kapmaca, kaleli yakan top, palant and Polish hopscotch. The underlying idea: first play the games of the other two countries, then learn how to lead them.
In Biga, the game sheets stopped being documents and became real sessions, with questions, mistakes and adjustments on the fly.
Quality is also assessed on the ground
SEDA, which is responsible for the project's quality and evaluation, gathered participants' feedback during the training through a dedicated questionnaire. That evaluation (what worked, what needs improving, what trainers need in order to replicate the workshops) will guide adjustments to the curriculum and materials before they are published in open access.
Next stop: the Mid-Term Review
The consortium will meet again in Biga on 26 and 27 November 2026 for the project's Mid-Term Review: a meeting to review progress on each work package and prepare for the second half of I-PLAY.
On the table will be the major challenges of the coming months: organising the local traditional sports festivals in the three countries, completing the digital toolkit and the training platform in four languages, and the policy advocacy work that will culminate in recommendations and national dialogue round tables.
Communicating in four languages
The training had its own communication campaign in Spanish, English, Turkish and Polish: a roll-up banner, a six-part carousel, and posts, stories and covers for social media, all bearing the European Union co-funding emblem. Biga then added its dissemination activities to the shared tracking sheet used by all three partners.
And now, the cascade effect
The Biga training does not end in Biga. Every participant returns home with a task: to run local workshops and bring traditional games into schools, clubs and youth centres. That is the route to our goal of training more than 100 educators, youth workers and coaches, and of involving more than 500 participants.
Thank you to the whole team at Biga Gelişim Spor Kulübü for their hospitality, and to every participant for playing, asking and correcting with such generosity.
Follow the next steps at i-play.abarka.org and on the ABARKA ONGD social media channels.