NEWS

This September, residents from across the Baltic Sea Region once again took part in Active Mobility Bingo – a fun but meaningful campaign organised under the SUMPs for BSR project. The initiative was held in celebration of Interreg Cooperation Day 2025 and European Mobility Week, encouraging people to rediscover their cities through walking, cycling, and other sustainable ways of getting around.

Unlike the previous year’s photo competition, this year’s campaign invited participants to complete playful yet purposeful mobility tasks while exploring their urban surroundings. Families, students, and active residents embraced the challenge and documented their journeys with photos – from riversides and bridges to museums, parks, city landmarks, and street art. The photos reflected the diversity and joy of active mobility in everyday life.

The campaign saw the most active participation in Panevėžys and Gdynia, where local communities showed particularly strong engagement. The updated campaign format encouraged participants to meaningfully connect with their urban environment and sustainable mobility through a series of fun and purposeful challenges.

Each city involved in the campaign – including Turku, Gävle, Greifswald, Panevėžys, Cēsis, Gdynia, and the whole of Estonia – selected its own local winners. In Panevėžys, the campaign culminated in a festive award ceremony, where the winners of Active Mobility Bingo were celebrated alongside schoolchildren who had taken part in another local mobility campaign. One particularly heartwarming story came from a young girl whose active participation with her family earned her the main prize in Panevėžys, perfectly capturing the spirit of inclusion and inspiration behind the campaign.

The initiative reminded us that walking and cycling are not only environmentally friendly and healthy ways to travel, but also joyful, accessible, and community-building experiences. By linking the activity with European Mobility Week, the project continues to promote the importance of sustainable urban transport in an engaging and creative way.

Looking ahead, the SUMPs for BSR team is already planning future editions of the campaign, with the aim of reaching even more citizens, sparking wider conversations about urban mobility, and inspiring further action across the Baltic Sea Region.