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A healthy heart at the Homeless World Cup

14 Sep 2017

The World Heart Federation was delighted to partner with Homeless World Cup to deliver  heart health messages during this unique competition, which saw over 500 players from more than 50 countries competing in Oslo, Norway.

Together with our Norwegian members the Norwegian Council on CVD (Nasjonalforeningen for folkehelsen) and our partners Healthy Stadia, we organized awareness activities for players and fans as part of our health promotion partnership with UEFA.

The tournament’s attendees had the opportunity to visit our booth in the competition area to get information on heart healthy lifestyles. Over 600 people were encouraged to find out more about their heart and take action through activities such as a test assessing the level of sugar in some popular beverages, games for children to learn about healthy food options, jumping ropes and football juggling competitions to understand the well-known benefits of an active and healthy behaviour.

Our partner Healthy Stadia also organized a multi-risk brief intervention training session for coaches and managers on alcohol, tobacco, recreational drugs and sexual health. A total of 28 coaches and managers were empowered with information, skills and resources to talk to the players in their team and in domestic settings about improving their health and well-being.

The Homeless Word Cup organizers were also briefed and supplied with a toolkit developed by Healthy Stadia to ensure that the tournament was a smoke free event.

Thank you to all our partners for this wonderful event, and congratulations to the Brazilian and Mexican teams for winning the cup!