C-VET for sport professionals: social inclusion through sport Erasmus Project

Project Title

C-VET for sport professionals: social inclusion through sport

Project Key Action

This project related with these key action: Cooperation for innovation and the exchange of good practices

Project Action Type

This project related with this action type : Strategic Partnerships for vocational education and training

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2018

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Inclusion – equity; Integration of refugees; New innovative curricula/educational methods/development of training courses

Project Summary

From 2013 to 2015, immigration in the EU-28 from non-EU coun-tries increased by 62,6% (Eurostat, migr_imm5prv). The number of first time asylum applicants in the EU-28 increased by 123% between 2014 and 2015 (Eurostat News release 44/2016).

This situation can foment tension, division and misunderstanding between the local population and the newly arrived migrants and refugees. Working on the social inclusion of newly arrived migrants and refugees can, however, play an important role in mitigating those issues.

Sport has long been recognised as a tool to promote social inclusion. The Council conclusions on the role of sport as a source of and a driver for active social inclusion (2010/C 326/04) recognise that: ‘[…] sport plays a strong societal role with a powerful potential for social inclusion in and through sport, […] whereby social inclusion through sport involves inclusive participation in society, community development and strengthened social cohesion.’

The sport organisations participating in this project have, for many years, used sport to promote the social inclusion of those from disadvantaged groups. However, during the last years we all noticed that newly arrived migrants and refugees have a very different background. Social inclusion methods that we had been using for many years were not effective with this target group. Our sport professionals felt that they lack adequate training to work in a positive and effective way with newly arrived migrants and refugees.

In this context, in order to respond to the identified training needs of sport professionals, the objective of the project was to develop the first open and multilingual online course for sport professionals on how to promote the social inclusion of newly arrived migrants and refugees through sport.

The online course is divided in 4 units:
Unit 1: Introduction to social inclusion and the power of sport to promote the social inclusion of newly arrived migrants and refugees.
Unit 2: Identifying and assessing the needs of newly arrived migrants and refugees.
Unit 3: Developing and implementing actions to promote the social inclusion of newly arrived migrants and refugees through sport.
Unit 4: Assessing the impact of the implemented actions, follow-up and dissemination of the results.

Once the first development of the online course was completed, it was tested by 22 sport professionals from 4 countries. Based on the feedback from the testers, the partners implemented additional improvements before the final publication of the online course in October 2020.

The online course is hosted in an e-learning platform, accessible from computers, tablets and smartphones. The platform is available in five EU languages: English, German, Spanish, Italian and Romanian at www.sportinclusive.eu.

Beyond the partners, the online course has the potential to be exploited by a wide range of organisations and individuals. Thanks to its publication as an OER under the Creative Commons license ‘Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0)’, anyone is allowed to use it as well as to modify it and build upon. Therefore, the online course will serve as the impulsion for future innovations and developments in the VET sector across the EU.

This cross-sectorial and cross-border partnership was an initiative of SPORTUNION Tirol (Austria) in collaboration with Red Deporte (Spain), Gruppo Sportivo Dilettantistico Esquilino (Italy), TSG Bergedorf von 1860 e. V. (Germany), and Centrul de Resurse pentru Diversitate Etnoculturala (Romania). The Sportinclusive project was co-funded by the Erasmus+ Programme of the European Union.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 137806 Eur

Project Coordinator

SPORTUNION TIROL & Country: AT

Project Partners

• Fundatia Centrul de Resurse pentru Diversitate Etnoculturala
• TSG Bergedorf von 1860 e. V.
• GRUPPO SPORTIVO DILETTANTISTICO ESQUILINO
• FUNDACION RED DEPORTE Y COOPERACIÓN