Knowledge Lab

The WoW Knowledge Lab (KLAB) is a collaboration framework where the technical experts coming from the five local sport ecosystems define innovative strategies and methodologies to address the needs previously identified and to promote water sports and physical activity among young people.

The KLABs brings together experts from a very broad range of fields, including: education, water sports (sailing, rowing, canoeing and diving), psicology, communication operators, local authorities.

This means that the needs are tackled from many different perspectives, and this reflected the WoW mission to:

• Understand cultural, social and education challenges in relationship with knowledge finding, acquiring, creating and sharing it;
• Design, build and evaluate systems, processes that enhance these relationships;
• Examine critically the assumptions about knowledge and learning that underlie the practice of water sports.

Moreover, the KLAB aims to explore and invent new roles by diverse actors in this process, and to understand how proper information, education and communication relates to broader social, economic and cultural factors.

The new techniques and methodologies for sport education developed through the KLABs are tested in a real context through a a living lab approach thanks to the organization of the WoW Sport for All Path: a delegation of coaches, volunteers, educators and youngs, both from schools and sport associations, from project regions take part to an international campus on water sport. The coaches, educators and volunteers organize sport courses, activities and lessons in a short cycle and full immersion module in order to collect immediate feed backs on the impact of the new sport education approaches developed. Coming from different Countries, the sport educators have the opportunity to further compare their experiences and skills arising from the different local ecosystems. On the other side, the young people involved in the Sport for All Paths have a firsthand opportunity to experience what are sport values and benefits, the potential of sport to unite different cultures and, moreover, to know and get familiar with water sports.
Thaks to the WP3, PPs develop and adopt new strategies for reducing the barriers and, therefore, improve the accessibility to water sports, for educating at sport tackling the phenomenon of sport drop out, for unleashing sport associations potential as providers of personal services and for promoting water sports and physical activity among youngs thank to the collaboration with other key actors

KLABs are the workshops where LICs representatives share their best practices and approaches and develop new strategies and action plans for tackling the problems identified and make the best use of their resources. Indeed, KLABs aim to overcome the challenges highlighted by the partnership in the project drafting phase (see need analysis) and fine tuned within the LICs meetings:
• accessibility of water sports reducing barriers that limit the possibilities of social inclusion, the promotion of equal opportunities and the “sport for all” approach application within such specific sports;
• volunteers skills in organisation and management of the activites of the water sport associations improving their role as providers of personal services to local communities;
• cultural barriers in young people and adults, especially among teachers and school administrators, limiting water sports practice thanks to the transfer of the technical, environmental and cultural knowledge;
• reduce the phenomenon of early dropout in water sport through new innovative methods of teaching, couching and educating “sport for all” values;
• the role of young people education played by water sports through new forms of collaboration between the different actors of civil society.

Deliverables foreseen: joint plan for the implementation of KLABs including a modules description with contents, expertise required and methodologies.