At opening ceremony in Bled, Slovenia of the annual European Week of Sport, which is being held all over Europe on Sept. 23-30, the Federation of the European Sporting Goods Industry (FESI) pledged its support for HealthyLifestyle4all (HL4A), a new initiative of the European Commission. Specifically, it will be launching in 2022 a two-year campaign, called StrongHER, to encourage participation among girls in sports, addressing “some of the major barriers” to it, such as the “lack of safe and tailored infrastructures in urban areas.” HL4A is a similar two-year initiative to StrongHER but designed for the general population. Sports organizations, members of civil society and public authorities took part in its development. FESI has also renewed its partnership with the European School Sport Day (ESSD), funded primarily by the EU’s Erasmus+ program. To this end FESI has collected about 2,000 items from some of its members – Puma, Adidas, Buff, Emerid and Trangoworld – for donation to schools in Belgium. According to FESI’s president, Neil Narriman, “we face an unprecedented global health crisis and figures on sport participation remain stagnant.”

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