The Jordan Olympic Committee are considering extending the Five Rings Challenge initiative ©JOC

The Jordan Olympic Committee are hoping to make their Five Rings Challenge a long-term initiative, having attracted hundreds of young participants since the launch in October.

The programme has been designed to encourage the country’s young people to embrace sport and healthy activities, with events being held at Al Hussein Park in the capital Amman every Saturday morning.

“It is proving to be very popular and so far more than 350 young people have taken part,” said Narin Hajtass, the JOC’s Knowledge, Training and Education Department manager.

“It is a new approach to promoting sport and healthy activity among this important age group and follows the lead from the Association of National Olympic Committees (ANOC) who want to create a new strategy to engage with the youth.

“Many of the people that have participated have not even played sport before and they enjoy it because they are learning from volunteers that don’t have a professional sporting background.

“It also encourages volunteerism as well as positioning sport as fun and social.”

A small number of volunteers, overseen by the JOC, are leading two-hour sessions which are aimed at getting participants to learn and have fun with sport.

JOC claim hundreds of participants are taking part in the challenge every Saturday
The JOC claim hundreds of participants are taking part in the challenge every Saturday ©JOC

The sessions, which are open to those aged between 18 and 30, consist of a warm-up followed by fun introductions and games of football, volleyball and basketball, while instruction on the health benefits of sport are reinforced at the end of the morning’s activities.

Several of the participants have physical and mental disabilities, and with numbers growing the JOC are considering running the programme beyond January, when it had been due to end.

“It is working very well and becoming a popular Saturday morning attraction down at the park,” Hajtass said.

“The feedback is very positive too so we will look at continuing again after the winter.”



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