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January 26, 2009
Children and young people supported to travel to sports practice
Around eighty children benefit by grants from a new travel fund established by the sports association Héradssamband Thingeyinga (HSTH). The first grants were presented today, to 24 parent groups and HSTH clubs that have transported children to HSTH practices. These recipients have driven children 58,501 km (36,350 miles) to practices in the grant period, from January to August 2008.
The travel fund, established by HSTH, is an experimental project spanning two years. The Alcoa Foundation is the fund‘s largest individual sponsor with a contribution of 66,000 US$. Other sponsors include the government and the municipalities of Thingeyjar county. Today, ISK 1.5 million (12,500 US$) was donated by the fund, and plans assume that grants will be allocated three times per year.
HSTH sports operations are geographically wide-ranging and the costs of driving children to sports practice is considerable. The travel fund was established to meet the costs incurred for the parents and individual sports associations within HSTH. Gas prices are high in Iceland and therefore, it can be hard for parents to support their children‘s participation in sports. The aims of the fund is to increase the possibilities for children and young people to attend practice in the sport field that interests them, under the best of conditions.
As an example of the distances that need to be covered in the sparsely populated Thingeyjar county, is the distance from Langanes in the eastern part to Bárdardalur in the western part, which is almost 200 miles. Facilities for sports practices in the area are generally quite good but they vary from area to area. In some places, there are, for instance, not the sufficient number of people to practice group sports. The fund is, therefore, aimed at supporting the ground transport of children and young people to practice within HSTH‘s area. Car pooling is especially encouraged wherever possible. To name some of the purposes of the fund, it is meant to enhance the utilisation of facilities, encourage social interaction, make it possible for children in rural areas to participate in group sports, and strengthen the solidarity between both the sportspeople in the area and their families.
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