The Turkish Olympic Committee’s (TOC) Sports Culture and Olympic Education Programme (OLI) has reached 150,000 children in 350 schools across 14 Turkish cities in 2017.

The multi-activity programme allows children in Turkey to take part in a series of educational and physical classes, focusing on core values such as fair-play, healthy eating and environmental awareness, as well as Turkey’s Olympic credentials and history.

The programme, first launched in 2006, visits primary schools across Turkey where children aged from 9-11 take part in interactive audio-visual presentations. National Turkish athletes will often participate in the presentations to provide additional inspiration for those in attendance.

This year, national swimmer Nida Eliz Üstündağ, who represented Turkey at the Rio 2016 Olympic Games, national fencer Enver Yıldırım Pınar, Karşıyaka basketball team player Egemen Güven and Karsiyaka volleyball team player Ayşegül Girgin visited many schools to illustrate  the OLI project to the kids,

In 2017, OLI visited the Turkish cities of Istanbul, Mersin, Kütahya, Bursa, Gaziantep, Hatay, Kocaeli, İzmir, Muğla, Antalya, Yalova, Ankara, Sakarya and Kastamonu. Since its inception, the OLI programme has visited 5,000 schools across 50 cities in Turkey.

Speaking on this year’s successful OLI project, IOC Vice President and TOC President Prof. Dr. Uğur Erdener said:

“2017 was another successful year for the OLI project which allowed thousands of children in Turkey to engage and learn about sports culture, the Olympic Games and Turkey’s national athletes. As of the end of 2017, we have reached approximately 1.9 million students since launching the project in 2006. We are extremely happy and proud of this unique project, which the largest of its kind in Turkey. By the end of 2018, we are aiming to reach more than two million children.”