As a member of the global TAFISA group, the ITTF Foundation strongly believes in the power of table tennis to bring positive social changes. The sport is not only a healthy leisure activity, but it also constitutes an opportunity to bring people together – making it an ideal tool for social inclusion and cohesion.
Focusing on combining these social aspects of the sport, the International Table Tennis Federation brought World Table Tennis Day to life. Every year on 6 April, marking also the International Day of Sport for Development and Peace, people celebrate the sport of table tennis by promoting social causes and bringing together their community.
Its ultimate aim is to keep as many people as possible from all walks of life involved with table tennis. In accordance with this goal, the World Table Tennis Day is based on three pillars:
- POPULAR
The celebration aims at increasing the number of table tennis enthusiasts, hobby player, interested parties, and people who usually don’t play table tennis.
- UNIVERSAL
On 6 April, table tennis is taken to all the corners of the world!
- INCLUSIVE
The sport is made accessible to everyone, irrespective of age, gender, social status, cultural background or physical ability.
Since its first edition in 2015, the ITTF Foundation organises one main event with very different scenarios, different continents are covered with a varying focus. Between 2015 and 2019, we celebrated table tennis in the main street of Argentina’s capital Buenos Aires, inaugurated the TT4NepALL project in Kathmandu together with para players, showed the world the simplicity of adapted sports at the UN Headquarters in New York and the SportAccord Convention in Denmark, played with refugees in the Za’atari Camp at the Jordan border with Syria and practiced with kids at two projects in Uganda encouraging school attendance and giving hope.
