Photo: ISCA President Mogens Kirkeby with group leaders of the sport division in Compensar.

ISCA President Mogens Kirkeby spent a warm week in December visiting ISCA members, partners and government officials in Colombia. As Colombia is a country that has embraced NowWeMOVE campaign event such as No Elevators Day and MOVE Week (Semana Muévela) and is now one of the most active NowWeMOVE countries in Latin America.

ISCA’s partnerships with Colombia have also flourished since 2013, when ISCA and Colombia's National Service of Learning (SENA) joined forces to cooperate on training programmes in Colombia together with ISCA members such as UBAE from Spain.

As part of his visit, coordinated by ISCA Executive Committee Member Liliana Ortiz de la Cruz, Kirkeby presented at the National Meeting of Departmental Programs and Municipalities of Habits and Healthy Lifestyles 2017, organised by the Colombian government department of sport Coldeportes. A video of his presentation will soon be translated into Spanish.

Kirkeby also met Director of Recreation, Education and Sport, Juan Manuel Rivadeneira, and Director of the Sport division, Carlos Calvete, at Compensar in Bogota (pictured above) to explore future opportunities for collaboration through the NowWeMOVE campaign.

Visits to existing partners were also on the programme, including to SENA offices and Instituto Distrital de Recreación y Deporte (IDRD). The latter visit was an active one, as Kirkeby joined the Christmas edition of the evening cycling event Ciclovia (pictured below), where major roads are closed off for recreational cyclists. The weekly Ciclovia is a signature event in Colombia and has been taken up by other countries around the world. The head of the IDRD sport division Oscar Ruiz Brochero presented at the MOVE Congress in 2015.

ISCA looks forward to more collaborative actions in Colombia in the coming years and the rise in physical activity participation rates across the country as a result with more opportunities for Colombians to “find their MOVE”.