[:en]European Union Projects[:]

ThesportstrandoftheEuropeanCommissionErasmus+programmeaimstosupportEuropeanpartnershipstodelivereducationandtrainingandyouthactivitiesacrossgrassrootssport.

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Within this context, the Fare network is partnering with organisations across Europe to develop expertise, influence policy making and empower communities on how to use football to bring about social change.

These partnerships aim to encourage social inclusion and equal opportunities in sport, promote the creation and development of transnational networks within this field, further education and the practice of sport, and tackle discrimination.

The Fare network is currently collaborating in eight transnational projects and is the lead partner in three projects: INSPIRES, iFlipp and YARSPE.

As part of these projects, several conferences will be organised across Europe and educational and guiding tools produced.

If you are interested in collaborating with the Fare network in an Erasmus+ Sport project by leading or as a collaborative partner, please send an email explaining your project or expertise to info@farenet.org.

Current Projects

INSPIRES - Lead

INtegration through SPort and Inclusion for Refugees in Europe for Sustainability (INSPIRES) is a 24-month project (January 2021 – December 2022) funded by the European Commission with the aim of equipping refugees, key actors in football, and NGOs with the skills and knowledge required to support the integration and social inclusion of female refugees in the EU.

The project focuses on engaging female refugees in developing and participating in football programmes and creating resources and information exchange opportunities for football stakeholders and civil society organisations.

As part of the project, Fare will lead a needs analysis into the current landscape of sport provisions for refugees, identifying gaps in knowledge and resources among coaches and organisations. After holding a European Stocktaking Seminar to further explore the situation across the EU, the project partners will develop an online exchange platform to increase capacity and resources among stakeholders. Local piloting and network development will further opportunities for refugees to be involved in creating sport programmes. Throughout the project, Fare will chair an expert advisory group to oversee the development of long-term policy recommendations.

Fare is the project lead, and project partners include:

YARSPE - Lead

Youth Anti Radicalisation through Sport in Europe (YARSPE) is a three- year project  starting in January 2020 aimed at creating tools for coaches, teachers and sport associations to prevent radicalisation among youth by collaborating with local organisations, institutions  and public authorities, and  prevent discrimination and extremism of all forms by organising sport activities for young people at risk of different forms of radicalisation.

YARSPE seeks to address in particular the push factor leading to marginalisation and discrimination and the pull factor by challenging the distortion and misuse of beliefs political ideologies and ethnic and cultural differences by the means of combining training courses, sport and leisure activities.

Fare is the project lead, and project partners include:

iFlipp - Lead

Innovating Football Leadership: Inclusion through Practice and Policy (iFlipp) is a three-year project starting in January 2020 aimed at assessing recent research in the representation of women and ethnic minorities (WEM) in leadership positions in football in order to develop responsive inclusive leadership governance action plan at National and European levels.

Lead by Fare network, the project aims to develop new training material which is transferable and ready-to-use by diversity and inclusion trainers working in sport in general and football in particular.

The objectives of iFlipp are: [1] To increase and enhance leadership skills of women and ethnic minorities in football by creating and piloting a set of inclusive professional development training materials, transferable and adaptable for sport organisations, [2] To support mainstreaming inclusive leadership practices, promote equal opportunities and good governance in football by (a) creating a Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) and (b) European policy and action recommendations based on a co-created common position in a manifesto, endorsed by football stakeholders, [3] To build capacity among and promote peer learning by/for emerging WEM leaders in football by creating and nurturing an enhanced network.

Fare is the project lead, and project partners include:

ACTIVE

ACTIVE Engage, Connect, Create, Empower – Promoting EU Youth Goals through Sports is a two-year project starting in January 2021 aimed at promoting interest and engagement about European Youth Goals and future EU youth policies among less active youth and youth risking marginalization based on potential sources of discrimination through inclusive and sustainable sport activities.

Led by GEA Cooperativa Sociale, the Active project seeks to create a network to enhance connection and engagement of less active young people in Europe around the European values and EU Youth Goals through sport; strengthen capabilities of young coaches and athletes to increase the active engagement on EU topic of their peers; promote inclusive and sustainable sport events and activities; and foster networking, capacity building and mutual cooperation among youth organizations and sport organizations that work with youth around Europe to improve their impact on EU policies and effective engagement of youth on EU issues.

The project partners involved are:

Fair Coaching

Fair Coaching (FC) is a 3 year project starting in 2020  aimed at promoting respect and values among professional and most of all grassroots coaches and trainers, contrasting sexist, violent and discriminatory behaviours to ensure a healthy and inspiring sport environment for professional and young athletes.

Lead by Lega Pallavolo Serie A from Italy, the objectives of Fair Coaching are:

  • Promote a widespread awareness among professional and grassroots coaches, supporters, athletes and athletes families about unfair and discriminatory behaviours in coaching towards all athletes and particularly young female athletes as they are the most affected target;
  • Support grassroots and professional sport clubs, federations, leagues and organizations in developing policy and a plan of action to prevent and tackle these behaviours and adopting binding European codes of conduct and ethical guidelines in coaching and training
  • Spread good examples in coaching and respect as well as a peer tutoring among testimonials and athletes, professional and grassroots, to increase awareness, activism, reporting about this issue in Europe

The project lead is Lega Pallavolo Serie A and the partners involved are:

Football Including Refugees+ (FIRE+)

Football Including REfugees+ (FIRE+) is a 3-year project, funded by the European Commission, seeking to further develop existing work of the original FIRE project and its work on promoting inclusion, participation, socialisation and access to sport for asylum seekers, migrants and refugees. FIRE+ seeks to increase the MOOC’s outreach to more grassroots football clubs across Europe.

The MOOC aims to expand its content to cater for a more representative approach and understanding of the target group-refugees, migrants, and asylum-seekers. The project strives for a more holistic approach to local social inclusion through football. By conducting a survey, the project will assess the experience and insight of active grassroots football clubs on creating and implementing a welcome programme or initiative.

Fare’s expertise will contribute to the elaboration of the survey, gather content from own expertise, contribute to the content of new MOOC modules and mobilise members of the network to participate in national introduction seminars. Fare’s #FootballPeople weeks will play an important role in the project.

The project lead is Sport and citizenship think tank (France) and the partners involved are:

Mapping Access in Public Space (MAPS)

Mapping Access in Public Spaces (MAPS) runs from January 2021 – June 2022. The projects main focus is to encourage social inclusion and equal opportunities in sport.

The general objective is to promote the accessibility and the regeneration of abandoned public urban places to generate Sport for All spaces in Europe through interactive mapping, active engagement of sport volunteers and activists, citizens awareness and networking among grassroots sport organizations.

Fare will lead on dissemination and communication.

The project lead is Polisportiva San Precario (Italy) and the partners involved are:

RE-PLAY

RE-PLAY is a follow up of the PLAY project and the main focus in on mentoring. Mentoring as a tool to connect sport universities students and grassroots sport coaches to play an effective role for inclusion and wellbeing of youth and kids.

The general objective of the RE-PLAY project is:
To promote a high level mentoring programme and approach between sport universities students and young volunteer coaches of grassroots sport organizations that work with young people and children coming from disadvantaged and less active groups through sport, enhancing their capacity to promote social inclusion through grassroots sport.

The project will specifically address and work with Young volunteer Coaches of grassroots sports organizations and sport universities students.

Fare will lead on communication and dissemination and digital storytelling videos of participating project mentors and mentees.

The project lead is ASD Margherita Sport e Vita (Italy) and the partners involved are:

RE-PLAY  is a three year project running from January 2021 – June 2023.

SIDFOOT

Community Football Drivers for social inclusion in deprived districts (SIDFOOT) starting in January 2020 and ending in May 2022 is focused on having a positive influence on the lives of children and young people living in deprived areas and involves activities that will steer young people towards education in values and the creation of healthy environments.

Lead by Real Betis Balompié Foundation, SIDFOOT aims to create and implement on the field the innovative figure of the “Community Football Driver”, a reference person who will be equipped for using all the potential that football has to impulse the social inclusion and a healthier life of children and youth who live in disadvantaged neighbourhoods. The project will also develop an IT based tool aimed at supporting the process of self-evaluation and  impact measurement of the actions and initiatives undertaken by the “Community Football Drivers” on the environment in which they are acting.

The project lead is Real Betis Balompié Foundation (Spain) and the partners involved are:

TACKLE

TACKLE Racism in Grassroots Football is a two-year project aiming to develop better approaches to tackling discrimination at grassroots level across 5 countries – Greece, Cyprus, Romania, Netherlands and Ireland.

The project focuses on coaches and managers working in grassroots football clubs to develop an e-learning platform helping to better understand, identify and proactively tackle racism and xenophobia.

Fare network is coordinating the desk review and field research on present challenges and best practices to combat racism in grassroots and youth football across Europe.

The project lead is CARDET – Centre for the Advancement of Research and Development in Educational Technology (Cyprus) and the partners involved are:

Belgian Red Courts

Fare network supports the Royal Belgian Football Association and partners in implementing the ‘Belgian Red Courts’ project in 2021-2024.

The ‘Belgian Red Courts’ programme focuses on building an educational programme and engagement of youth around the network of ‘urban’ football pitches in over 40 communities in Belgium.

Throughout the 4 years of the project implementation, the RBFA will renovate the football pitches in communities across Belgium and roll out an educational programme for coaches to hold regular football sessions promoting inclusion, access and local social cohesion of connections through the Belgian Red Courts.

RBFA together with partners is developing a weekly programme for each community with football activities, educational workshops, debates and a local football tournament at the end of the season. 10 new Belgium Red Court coaches will be trained to deliver together with the local Belgian Red Courts Coordinator a minimum 6-hour a week programme for each community working with diverse target groups.

Working closely with local municipalities, NGOs and research institutions, the RBFA aims to share best practice and facilitate exchange of experience with international partners through exchange workshops and a handbook of best practices.

For more information see: https://www.rbfa.be/en/belgian-red-courts

Past Projects

Step Up Equality (SUE)

Step Up Equality (SUE) is a project beginning in January 2019 with an end date of December 2021.

The main objective of this proposal is to promote gender equality and challenge gender-based discrimination in grassroots sport across Europe through the cooperation and the exchange of best practices and expertise between different sports.

The project has five key objectives:
1. Strengthen the specific skills of women currently active within grassroots sport organisations to navigate and challenge existing norms and structures and increase their influence and presence as trainers, coaches and managers and their visibility and appropriate coverage in media
2. Increase awareness and mainstreaming of gender equality in sport, spreading examples of female leadership in sport and reducing gender stereotypes and other barriers that exclude women from leadership roles
3. Promote public sport initiatives and events to increase opportunities for engagement in sport activities of women from disadvantaged groups, promoting an exchange of skills, experiences and inspiration between women in sport
4. Prepare, test and promote a European system to report gender discrimination in grassroots sport
5. Increase networking and cooperation between women in coaching and leadership positions from mainstream sports (e.g. football and volleyball) and emerging sports (e.g. roller derby) in Europe.

The project lead is Real Betis Balompié Foundation (Spain) and the partners involved are:

Football3 for all

Football3 for all is a project aimed at designing an organisational-level football3 certification – building capacity and certifying participating project organisations in the process – as well as a related individual certification pathway.

Complementing this overall certification scheme is a Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) that will allow individuals to asynchronously and remotely access validated football3 education while also giving them access to certified training.

The project lead is Streetfootballword (Germany) and the partners involved are:

Football Makes History (FMH)

Football Makes History (FMH)  is a three year project that builds on football’s power and potential as the most popular sport in the world to appeal to young people and those in disadvantaged positions, and on history, which when taught responsibly contributes to active citizenship and a sense of belonging. Together they can make a significant positive change in the lives of young people across Europe.

FMH is a vital step in a long-term vision, which would place local history at the heart of every football club’s social corporate responsibility strategy to help them reach out to communities and address modern-day challenges and opportunities such as diversity, migration, discrimination and equality.

The project idea has evolved from experience of civil society organisations active in education, sports, outreach and research. Sharing a passion for history and football, they seek to utilise both in a concerted effort to promote social inclusion by pursuing five specific objectives:

1. Promote diversity, anti-discrimination and equality, including gender equality.
2. Innovate formal and non-formal learning leading to social, civic and intercultural competences and critical thinking.
3. Support the professional development of educators and youth workers and build the capacity to develop and implement innovative teaching methods.
4. Engage in cultural heritage for all by accessing the histories, memories and legacies residing in football history in transnational perspectives on all levels.
5. Raise public awareness on the role of learning for social inclusion and increase the sharing of innovative practices across the continent.

The project lead is EUROCLIO (Netherlands) and the partners involved are:

REWINS - Lead

REfugee Women INclusion through Sports (REWINS) is a 24-month project designed with a goal to encourage social inclusion and equal opportunities in sport, specifically for refugee women. It runs from January 2018 to December 2020.

The main project aims for REWINS are to promote a positive attitude towards refugee women in sports, identify refugees’ barriers and good practices for participation in local sport activities, provide opportunities for refugee women at grassroots level, raise awareness of the refugee population and mobilise better inclusion of refugees in local sports organisations.

The direct target group for the project will be refugee women age 18 and over, along with coaches and local communities. Outputs will include the development of training courses for coaches and the formation of women’s football teams in the selected partner countries, based on the methodologies of the training courses.

Fare is the project lead, and project partners include:

Changing the Chants (CtC)

Changing the Chants (CtC) is a two-year project starting in June 2019 aimed at combatting antisemitism in football through non-formal education and law enforcement in Europe.

Led by Anne Frank Stichting, the Changing the Chants project seeks to create new knowledge of preventive and restorative justice approaches, support local football communities to prevent and respond to antisemitic hate speech, strengthen local co-operation between football communities, law enforcement and civil society stakeholders and build football community leaders’ capacity to respond to antisemitic hate speech and hate crime.

The project partners involved are:

For more information about the project visit: https://changingthechants.eu/

Football Including Refugees (FIRE)

The Football Including REfugees (FIRE) project begins in January 2019 until December 2020. FIRE aims at promoting inclusion, participation, socialisation and access to sport for asylum seekers, migrants and refugees. In particular, the approach is oriented towards fostering intercultural openness in sport clubs and sport bodies.

The aim of FIRE is to empower, enable and support sport organisations in working with refugees and asylum seekers: we want to gather together people through sport, independently from nationality, citizenship, cultural background, juridical status and any other variables.

The project lead is Sport and citizenship think tank (France) and the partners involved are:

Mobility Project

Mobility Project is a two-year project starting in January 2019 that aims to contribute to the efforts of sport organisations by supporting the learning mobility of their staff. The target group are trainers and managers of sport clubs at the grassroots level. Eight study trips will be organised together with foreign partners. In addition to education, networking will be an important goal – establishing long-term relationships with local trainers, volunteers and club managers.

Each study trip is five days of training, seminars and workshops. Emphasis will be placed on meetings and exchange of knowledge, and the summary of each trip will be an international conference organised by a local partner, which is an opportunity to meet and exchange experiences with national sport people.

The project lead is Towarzystwo Sportowe Iron Man (Poland) and the partners involved are:

BRISWA

Ball Rolls In the Same Way for All (BRISWA) is a partnership of organisations from Italy, Greece, Serbia, Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria aimed at dealing with racism in football, while sharing a message of equality among youth players.

It looks to:

  • Understand the current situation of racism in Europe and identify the main drivers for such a phenomenon.
  • Assess how racist acts can be mitigated and ultimately possibly eradicated from the sport culture.
  • Implement such strategies and policies starting among the youth.
  • Establish what are the skills (psychological, social, etc.) for a new fundamental figure in football teams who will be responsible for identifying racist drifts within the team and for addressing these.
  • Disseminate the values of equality throughout Europe by creating awareness through the project various channels and also by focused sport events, training seminars, project meetings and public workshops/conferences.

Find out more about BRISWA here.

Football3 For Respect

Football3 For Respect uses the harnessed the power of the football3 methodology to tackle the challenges of racism, violence, and radicalism faced by youth of migrant and refugee backgrounds.

It addresses challenges for refugee and migrant youth inclusion by building local capacity, and, in turn, equipping coaches with the skills to counter violence, intolerance, discrimination and radicalisation through football sessions.

The project will develop a training-of-trainers toolkit that will allow coaches in each partner organisation to learn how to implement the football3 method. It will directly involve 500 coaches and, through them, 50,000 young sportspeople.

During the implementation period, project partners will test and further develop the training-of-trainers toolkit through workshops and football3 events.

The project is coordinated by StreetFootballWorld and will run for 24 months from January 2016 until December 2018.

Project partners include Albion in the Community, Balon Mundial, CAIS, Fare, INEX, MSIS, Oltalom Sport Assocaition, Red Deporte, RheinFlanke, Shumenski Universitet, Sport4Life, Sport Against Racism Ireland (SARI) and Sport dans la Ville.

Find out more about it here.

GIIG

Get Inclusive In the Game (GIIG) is 12-month project funded by the European Commisson, which ran from January – December 2017, to promote voluntary activities in sport that foster the social inclusion of minority groups, equal opportunities and raise awareness of health-enhancing physical activity.

At the core of the project is a model that aims to involve migrants and refugees living in Italy, and women in sports, and address issues including gender equality, diversity, while building social relations, creating networks and providing life-skills.

The project’s website will gathers data and information for the development and financing of strategic partnerships and the planning of sports initiatives, furthering the project’s methodology.

As part of the project, information days were held in schools, sport for all days, as well as a final international conference, where the  GIIG model was promoted and outcomes presented.

Project partners include Unione Sportiva ACLI Frosinone (Italy), Associazione di volontariato Nuovi Orizzonti ONLUS (Italy), ASD Balon Mundial Onlus (Italy), Društvo za razvijanje prostovoljnega dela Novo mesto (Slovenia), Towarzystwo Sportowe Iron Man (Poland) and the Fare network.

INSPIRE

Sport and Inclusion for Refugees in Europe (INSPIRE) is a 12-month project (January – December 2018) funded by the European Commission seeking to increase the potential for host communities to successfully engage and integrate refugees through sport.

The project focuses on identifying refugees’ needs for and barriers to participation in local sport activities, support the provision of sporting activities and provide opportunities for refugees and asylum seekers at grassroots sport level, while promoting a transferable methodology based on the findings.

Particular attention is being paid to gender balance due to the low levels of participation of female refugees in grassroots sport caused by lack of information of how to access sports activities, lack of opportunities, little experience and low self-confidence in trying out or practising sport or sport activities unsuitable for female refugees due to cultural differences.

A minimum of 50% of the beneficiaries will be female.

As part of the INSPIRE project a toolkit has been developed and was presented at the project’s final conference in Warsaw in December 2018 sharing training modules, best practice examples and offering recommendations to sports organisations and practitioners. The toolkit is available to view here.

Project partners include the Fare members Les Dégommeuses and Fundacja dla Wolności, from France and Poland respectively, who have comprehensive expertise in working with refugees and implementing football projects for refugees. Fare is the project’s lead partner.

Follow INSPIRE on social media through the hashtag #RefugeesInspire and on farenet.org.

INSPIRE4ALL

INSPIRE4ALL is a 12-month project running from January to December 2019 aimed at supporting the integration of refugees through sport in their host communities.

The project’s predominant focus is on increasing the participation of refugees in local sports activities, with a goal to raise the potential for host communities to positively engage with refugees through football and at least two other sports.

Using mixed sport sessions for male and female refugees and locals, and joint events that bring together refugees and local populations, INSPIRE4ALL applies a holistic approach to ensure long-lasting results for at least 100 beneficiaries, with a goal to reach at least 5,000 male and female refugees, sports people in sports clubs and NGOs.

Training seminars and study visits will also be made available for sport providers to learn how to reduce barriers for refugees to participate in sports programmes.

A webinar on how to plan and deliver sports activities for refugees and locals, INSPIRE4ALL toolkit with workshop module and action day template programme will be some of the outputs from the year-long project.

There are three project partners involved: Polisportiva San Precario, from Italy, Champions Ohne Grenzen from Germany and the Fare network. The Fare network is the lead partner in this project.

P.L.A.Y!

Peer Education, Leadership, Action, Youth (P.L.A.Y!) is a three-year project focused on promoting grassroots sport to improve school success and social inclusion.

The project aims to promote transferable social and educational competences through sport to children in disadvantaged situations or at risk of social exclusion because of their background as migrants or ethnic minorities. It also tackles failure at school and aims to reduce dropout rates, and at the same time provides a wide range of sporting activities.

During its pilot and implementation years, a series of ongoing activities and events will be delivered by each partners, matching educational and grassroots sport opportunities for children and youth.

Partners include project coordinator and Fare network member Finnish Multicultural Sports Federation (FIMU), ASD Margherita Sport e Vita (Italy), Consorzio Comunità Solidale (Italy), Drustvo za razvijanje prostovoljnega dela Novomesto (Slovenia), Fare and Pere Tarrés Foundation (Spain).

The project ran from January 2017 until December 2019.

Follow P.L.A.Y! news and social media: Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

PsyTool

Sport Psychology as a Strategic Tool for Prevention in Grassroots Sport (PsyTool) is a project led by Pablo de Olavide University which analyses violence, harassment and discrimination and develop new approaches to tackle these.

The specific objectives of PsyTool are to:

  • Gather objective data on the incidence and impact of negative behaviour practices in youth sport and to identify best practice at European level.
  • Create educational and innovative tools based on sport psychology to promote positive experiences and outcomes and protect young athletes against the existing risks.
  • Create a European network of ‘Agents of Change’ to promote positive personal development in youth sport.
  • Demonstrate this new approach and test the results on the ground, through the management of pilot workshops for the final beneficiaries.

The project, which ran from January 2016 and December 2017, created a platform to help coaches, teachers, students and practitioners to use sport psychology as strategic tool to promote integrity and to tackle violence, discrimination, intolerance and match fixing in grassroots sports. The objective is to intervene and to protect athletes from these existent threats in sport.

Partners include: University Autónoma de Barcelona (UAB), Spain; University of the Balearic Islands (UIB), Spain; Spanish Federation of Sport Psychology (FEPD), Spain; University of Halmstad, Sweden; University la Sapienza of Rome (SUR), Italy; International Council for Coaching Excellence (ICCE), UK; University of Lisbon, Portugal; International Center for Sport Security Europe (ICSS Europe), UK; Fare; Foundation of Sevilla F.C., Spain; Sporting Club of Portugal; and Portuguese National Sport Foundation (PNSF).

SAVEit

Save the Dream of Grassroots Sports based on Values (SAVEit) aims to eradicate violence, intolerance and all forms of discrimination in grassroots sport, promote inclusion and draw attention to its relevance to youth development.

It supports and shares innovative approaches that address these issues which can negatively affect sport’s integrity.

The two-year long project, which is running from January 2017 to December 2018, collects and analyses best practices used by athletes, NGO’s, clubs and others, that stand out as a good example to foster sport values and dialogue both in grassroots and professional sports. These examples form part of a best practice guide launched in 2018.

SAVEit is also developing an online platform to be used by qualified coaches to learn new and innovative ways in which they can uphold integrity and value creation in sport and a game for youth to learn about the different values they can learn through sport.

Project partners include: Foundation Culturalista Leonesa (project leader), Spain; Autonomous University of Madrid, Spain; AS Eupen VoG, Belgium; Altum Foundation, Spain; Fare; Panther Force Gaia, Portugal; Rugby Colorno, Italy.

Find out more about SAVEit here. Also on Facebook and Twitter.

All of the above described projects are funded by the European Commission.

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