On Saturday 24 October 2026 we ran the Young Sports Leaders training. It is the first project delivered by the Free to Dream Foundation, prepared together with the Competence Development Office at Maria Curie-Skłodowska University (UMCS) in Lublin. 19 people signed up and 15 spent the whole day with us.
Why we invest in young people?
The clubs and academies we work with keep telling us the same thing: they lack people to handle communication, paperwork and fundraising. At the same time, many students want to work in sport but have nowhere to gain their first experience. Volunteering in youth sport can connect the two, as long as volunteers understand how an academy works before they join one.
Participants were students and graduates in management, sport science, finance, law, and sport and tourism management.
The programme.
AI at work in an academy, Mateusz Przybysz: communication, documents, graphics, marketing.
How does an academy work?, Dominik Ściborek: getting started, finding clients, camps and events.
Where to find funding?, Mateusz Boczyło: writing applications, reporting, building a grant profile.
From volunteering to a career, Rafał Kaszubski: projects, the International Volunteer Year, career paths.
Workshop: volunteering in practice, all speakers: group work, matching volunteers with academies, the Volunteer Database.
Summary and certificates.
One talk was not on the agenda. Rafał Warchoł, spoke for 15 minutes about the opportunities that working in sport opens up. Dominik Ściborek brought a robot dog as an example of where passion can lead, and participants helped him choose its name.
What happens next.
All participants joined our Volunteer Database. From November we will match them with academies in the Free to Dream network. People who signed up but could not attend on Saturday remain part of the programme.
The “Young Sports Leaders: Academy of Sports Volunteering and Internships IVY 2026” initiative is carried out under the project “MRW Initiatives Fund: I act because I like it”, co-financed by the International Volunteer Year Initiatives Fund. Regional Project Operators: Bieszczady Folk University, Sursum Corda Association and Bieszczady Foundation.
