One of the special fans of Romanian National Team, Silviu, had a day to remember this summer thanks to the one of the world’s best players Cristina Neagu and people from Romanian handball. The blind guy got a special 3D poster with the biggest star of Romanian handball as a part of the project of attracting people with dissabilities to attend handball matches.
Live up to our brand promise “Handball National Sport” and prove that we are realy the team sport for every Romanian – says Lorand Balint, one of the project’s creator.
We rewarded some of the Romanian handball most special fans: blind people. People who never saw a handball game, never saw or toched the players but still come to our games. They live the games through the audience’s reactions, through the fans chants of happiness or sighs of sadness. While doing this, we transmited a clear message of friendly environment for people with dissabilities.
IDEA WAS BORNWHEN WE SAW SILVIU…
– In March 2015, after defeating the World Champions Brazil in a home game, we’ve seen Silviu, one very special young blind Romanian, happily quing for more than one hour to take a photo with, and get an autograph from, his favorite player, Cristina Neagu. While ha was waiting together with the rest of the fans for the team to come out from the locker rooms, we realised that he is doing all this effort for something that he will actually never see – he will treasure it, nurture it without knowing exactly what it is – added Balint.
– But the reallity is that blind people have their own, special way of looking at things, that they can “see” many things through their fingers – building on the touch sence.We decided to move fast and prepare something special for the next games of the Romanian Team:
1) fan T-Shirts with messages written in Braille alphabet;
2) special 3D pens that make any writing thick – a sort of 3D effect
3)a special poster with Cristina Neagu in 3D – a gift to Silviu. We scanned Cristina’s head and, using a special 3D printing technology, we created the first ever poster with a sport star.
In 2015, the Romanian National Women team played three games at home, in the Cluj Arena sporting hall – all of them sold out events with more than 7 300 people in the audience.
For the first game we had less than 20 people with disabilities. The number grew to 30 and than to more than 80 – includind 21 blind people.
EVEN MORE IMPORTANT, SILVIU HAS ON HIS WALL A POSTER WITH CRISTINA NEAGU , A POSTER THAT HE CAN LOOK AT ANY TIME AND REMEMBER ALL THE GREAT MOMENTS HE HAD WITH THE REST OF THE ROMANIAN HANDBALL FANS.
SPECIAL NOTE
A big thank you to our partners from Asociatia Derzelas, our sponsor BRD Societe Generale, our partner the creative agency Leo Burnett Romania, to our PR agency Sports Net Management and Mrs. Angela Ciuciulin Pop – one of the most loyal fans of the Romanian Handball who first challenged us to do something to bring these people to handball games and than helped us a lot to make it happen.
