During almost two years of collective work, meetings and contacts, partners of the TRAWECU project (Greece, Serbia, Romania, Spain, France) met in SERRES, 80.000 inhabitants, near the Bulgarian border, Greece. The program was linked to a major multi-day trade fair, SEREXPO. On Saturday an international conference was organized in the morning, then in the afternoon a traditional wrestling competition of PALI in the SEREXPO space. Then on Sunday was scheduled a meeting to review the project + visits.

The conference was the occasion for the Greek partners to announce the creation of a “Hellenic association for the promotion of traditional sports, games and festivities” or «Ελληνικός Σύλλογος Προώθησης Παραδοσιακού Αθλητισμού, Αγώνων και Εκδηλώσεων» that would function a little like AEJeST. All interested associations are welcome to become members: schools, sports clubs, association of ‘panigiris’ (patron day festivals), universities.

The participants were leaders of associations, students, teachers and project partners. This allowed the AEJeST and the leaders of the TRAWECU project to officially award a “Certificate of Recognition” for their decades of work in transmitting traditional sports to some leaders of local festival committees (see photo).

The PALI wrestling competition saw the participation of wrestlers from all over Macedonia and wrestlers from Romania and Serbia. This tournament should be organized every year.

See the booklet made for this occasion: Περιοδικό Παραδοσιακής Πάλης

The Sunday meeting focused on showing that the partners had become friends during this project. This is undoubtedly what allowed the project to be a success despite the Covid crisis. Several other Erasmus projects are already in the pipeline to continue this collaboration on other development projects.