Working closely with two non-government organisations, Eurorelief and Movement on the Ground, the Dutch foundation, Sports for Children (SFC) provided relief and entertainment for children in unimaginable living conditions. The large gymnastics mats were not used for practicing somersaults and backflips, but, rather, as beds in a place where real beds were nonexistent, while the balls helped the children forget where they were, at least while they were playing football.
The Sports for Children Foundation is a non-profit organisation based in Eindhoven, Netherlands, which was founded in 2011 with the goal of donating used gymnastics and sports equipment to schools and sports clubs in countries which don’t have the financial means to purchase this equipment themselves. From the date of this article’s publication, the Foundation has supplied 95 trucks of equipment to 400 schools that serve 250,000 children around the world.
Since schools in The Netherlands have a budget for sports equipment, the old equipment is frequently discarded. For many years now, the Foundation has been collecting used materials and transporting them to their warehouse in Helmond, where they are refurbished and distributed as needed. Stefan Groothuis, SFC’s logistics coordinator, organises the transport to the warehouse and makes sure that the equipment arrives to its intended destination. Along with its chairman, Jan-Willem Geurts, Groothuis has been with the Foundation since its establishment.
“Equipment arrives to our warehouse on an almost daily basis. Wednesdays we do the necessary refurbishing with the help of our amazing volunteers, while I take care of various other jobs on the other days. No day here is the same. I love my office, and I hope that I will be able to do this job forever,” says Groothuis, who refers to a huge warehouse stacked “from floor to ceiling with gymnastics mats, vaults and other equipment as his office.
The Sports for Children Foundation is mainly financed by its primary sponsor, Janssen-Fritsen, a factory that was founded in Helmond in 1950 for the production of playground equipment. Today it is a world-famous brand known for its gymnastics equipment which was used at the Olympic Games in Mexico, Munich, Barcelona, Athens, Beijing, Rio and Tokyo. Janssen-Fritsen also supplies schools, municipalities and sports clubs in Holland, modernising equipment to fit today’s needs. The initiator of SFC was former owner Jacques Janssen who wanted to add social significance into the family business.
Aside from janssen-Fritsen, the Foundation is also dependent on donations from external companies that provide support out of social interest. “It has become increasingly important for larger companies in the EU to practice corporate responsibility, and SFC benefits from this. We have a lot of expenses, mainly concerning the rental of our warehouse and the transport costs to collect and deliver the materials,” explains Groothuis.
From its inception, the Foundation has focused on Eastern Europe, where gymnastics has always had a long tradition as a competitive sport and where professional equipment is of special significance. “I personally have a special connection to the Balkans,” says Groothuis, who has organised trucks of equipment to Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Montenegro, Kosovo, Moldova and Romania. “I am always warmly welcomed by the people there. It’s wonderful to see that people appreciate what you do, and I always feel that in the Balkans.”
When he travels around the Balkans, Groothuis notices changes that have taken place in the fields of gymnastics and physical education since SFC began donating equipment there. “We filled a school in Bosnia with sports equipment and a gym teacher was subsequently hired to teach gym lessons that the school did not have before,” he says. The Foundation has also sent materials to four schools in Kosovo in 2014 and several to Montenegro in 2016.
“The best part of my job is when I travel with our donations several times a year. It is incredibly motivating when you see the joy in the children’s eyes as they jump on a trampoline! Contact with the gym teachers and school directors is also really meaningful. people are genuinely very happy when we show up with a truck full of sports equipment. I meet a lot of new people through this work, and sometimes I even make new friends. One of those friends calls me Santa Claus,” he laughs.
I myself came in contact with Groothuis twelve years ago when I was looking for a balance beam and called Janssen-Fritsen. SFC has only recently been founded and he explained to me how the Foundation worked. Shortly thereafter, we imported the first truckload of equipment for the Gymnastics Club Pobednik in Belgrade.
SFC has sent around 500m3 of materials to 35 schools and several sports clubs throughout Serbia over the years. Among others in Belgrade, SFC has provided donations to the elementary school Vladislav Ribnikar, the Military Highschool, and Gymnastics clubs Diplomac and Pobednik. Similarly to the school in Bosnia, gymnastics classes were introduced for the first time at Ribnikr school, while the equipment at the Military Highschool made it possible for then-professor miroslav panic to be able to prepare students for entrance exams to the faculty of Sport and Physical education. Alongside these schools, SFC equipped two large gymnastics halls in Belgrade, one in the former textile factory Kluz, and another located at the Belgrade Fair, which is one of the best-equipped gymnastics halls in the region.
Thanks to a donation it received from SFC, the Gymnastics Association of Serbia was able to distribute equipment among twelve clubs throughout the country. According to Sasa Velickovic, the president of the Gymnastics Association of Serbia, “the goal is to work on another donation for other gymnastics clubs because the Gymnastics Association simply does not have the funds to purchase new equipment. We are doing everything that we can to support both competitive and recreational gymnastics.”
SFC’s donations have fostered regional cooperation between gymnastics clubs in the former Yugoslav republics, which organise competitions and host each other in their respective countries throughout the year. More than 400 children participated in a friendly competition in Tuzla in 2023 which was jointly organised by Prof. Almir Atikovic, president of the Gymnastics Club Tuzla and Sasa Solar, sports director of the Gymnastics Club GK Inova Gim from Osijek.
“The goal of this competition is to encourage friendship among children both in sports and in life,” explains Sasa Solar, who used to be a coach for the Croatian national team and now designs training programs for younger competitive gymnasts. “I know Almir for a long time. We were both gymnasts in the former Yugoslavia. Our clubs work together very well, and we organise these friendly competitions every year where other Croatian and Bosnian clubs also participate. We also participated in a joint Erasmus+ project with clubs from Slovenia, Sweden and The Netherlands. We all became good friends and plan to cooperate on another project again soon. We work together with Stefan and SFC on all these projects.”
Solar, who has several top-level gymnasts who regularly place in international competitions, explains that he introduced Groothuis to the president of the Gymnastics Association of Croatia, Mario Moznik, and helped foster the distribution of gymnastics equipment throughout Croatia. New clubs also opened, made possible by these donations. “When a massive earthquake hit the town of Petrinja on December 29, 2020 in which one gymnastics club was completely destroyed, one phone call from me to Stefan was enough to organise a donation to that club which has excellent gymnasts and is sending a representative to the European Championships in Rimini,” explains Solar. “And the story doesn’t end there! We’re going on!”
“I learned of Stefan accidentally through my gymnastics friend Sasa Solar from Osijek,” says Zeljko Jambrovic from the Gymnastics Club Petrinja. “The earthquake which struck Petrinja in 2020 was so powerful that half of the residents of Petrinja were left without a roof over their heads. It happened when our best gymnasts were training at the gym. The hall was destroyed within ten seconds, and it was sheer luck that we were left unharmed. I thought that gymnastics was over in Petrinja because 90% of our equipment was destroyed and the hall was rendered completely unusable. Our friends Sasa Solar and Almir Atikovic got in touch with Stefan, and the Gymnastics Association of Croatia also joined the effort. Stefan sent us two full truckloads of amazing equipment, with the help of Sasa, Almir and Mario Moznik.”
Almir Atikovic. professor at the Faculty for Sport and Physical Education in Tuzla and president of the Gymnastics Club Tuzla, remembers that he too heard about Stefan accidentally in 2014. “I spent years searching for any kind of donation after the horrific war in Bosnia and Herzegovina and, one day, like a thunderbolt out of the blue, I happened across a Facebook post about a donation of sports equipment received by one Gymnastics Club Pobednik in Belgrade. I contacted the owner, Zoran Vranov, to ask him how he had received the donation. He sent me some information and our joy was unparalleled when, a short while later, a truck full of equipment arrived in Tuzla.”
Prof. Atikovic explains that the only equipment that his club had at the time dated back from the Yugoslav Championship which had been held in Tuzla in 1985. Those same gymnastics mats were used as beds by refugees from Srebrenica and the surrounding areas when the sports hall was converted into an asylum centre, and finally hit by a grenade in the middle of war.
“We now have a significantly larger number of children in our club, and this equipment has greatly contributed to the variety of activities that gymnastics offers for children,” says Atikovic, who has been helping other schools and clubs in the region together with SFC for many years. “The working conditions in several sports clubs have improved immensely, especially because of the support of the Gymnastics Association of Croatia and, more recently, the Gymnastics Association of Serbia. What is most important is that there has been an increase in the number of children enrolling in gymnastics classes and enjoying competitions in this sport.”
In a joint effort with Atikovic, SFC has donated sports equipment to the Gymnastics Association of Serbia, the Gymnastics Club Nis, elementary schools in Montenegro, the Gymnastics Association of Croatia, the Gymnastics Club GK Inova Gim Osijek, Gymnastics Club Dubrovnik, Gymnastics Club Stella (Split), Gymnastics Club Petrinje, and numerous elementary schools and kindergartens in Croatia. In Bosnia, they have donated materials to the Gymnastics Club Bosnia (Sarajevo), Gymnastics Club Libertas (Mostar), Gymnastics Club Sparta (Doboj), Gymnastics Club Olimp (Doboj), Gymnastics Club Sarah (Cazin) and several elementary schools.
Prof. Atikovic stresses that this regional cooperation has been made possible solely because Groothuis was willing to travel to Tuzla more than fifteen times and accompany him on visits to various schools and clubs. “I was able to convince him to continue to work with the former Yugoslav republics because there are many things that unify these countries. Despite the wars that have ravaged the Balkans, those of us who love this sport still try to support each other.” He hopes that the next donation that they work on will go to the Serb parts of Kosovo where children don’t have access to the basic necessities for sports.
“I think that we need to establish a branch office in the Balkans which could hold a large amount of equipment so that when someone contacts Stefan, we could quickly send materials on to schools or sports clubs. We discussed having something like that in Tuzla, but unfortunately it was too complicated with the border crossings and administrative paperwork. I hope that Serbia, Macedonia, Kosovo, Montenegro and Bosnia will sign an agreement on the free transportation of this type of goods in the near future,” he concludes.
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Cestitke autorici teksta Isidori.