ABOUT
About Welcome Through Football
The Welcome Through Football project aims to assist in the integration and inclusion of recently arrived young refugees, asylum seekers and young people with a migrant background. In the project EFDN will develop and test a European methodology that uses football as a tool to reach refugees and migrants from different ages (7-25 years old) to get them physically and social active in European communities. The project also wants to train the staff members of participating organisations in this new methodology and to develop a Welcome through Football Practitioners Guide with train the trainer courses that are accessible for free and widely used by interested organisations and sport clubs in Europe.
The general objective of this Welcome Through Football project is to provide 675 young refugees and asylum seekers capacity building opportunities to achieve inclusive and peaceful societies, to share best practice programmes and methodologies, identify critical success factors and further develop our comprehensive 3 step football based social inclusion Methodology that can be used by professional and grassroots football clubs in the delivery of football based community programmes that supports the inclusion of refugees and asylum seekers and promotes the acceptance of refugees and immigrants in the European society.
Welcome through Football project 2019
This Welcome Through Football project is a follow up programme of the Welcome through Football pilot phase of 2019. The was a 12-month project funded under the EAC/S16/2018 call ‘Sport as a tool for integration and social inclusion of refugees’ and officially ended on the 31 of December of 2019. This short pilot project has shown significant EU added value and is the main inspiration for the development of this Welcome Through Football project. The pilot project was delivered by EFDN in five European communities in partnership with Apollon Limassol FC, Everton in the Community, FC Emmen, KAA Gent Foundation and Werder Bremen.
Welcome through Football project
The Welcome Through Football project aims to build upon the previous Welcome Through Football 2019 project and deliver a specific European methodology that uses football as a tool to reach refugees aged 7-25 years old. To successfully develop this project, EFDN have analysed and reviewed the Welcome Through Football 2019 project in great detail, ensuring we are able to learn and improve upon the previously delivered project to provide greater value to communities across Europe. Furthermore, Everton in the Community, FC Emmen, KAA Gent Foundation and Werder Bremen acknowledge the great benefit of the project and have chosen to partner on this Welcome Through Football project to ensure they can further develop the Welcome Through Football Methodology , continue to deliver an effective football based social inclusion project in their local communities, as well as share their expertise and experience from the previous project to support the other partners in this project to develop the Welcome through Football project in their communities.
The Welcome Through Football project will bring nine community engaged football clubs together to deliver a programme that will increase social cohesion and provide personal development and employability opportunities for young refugees, asylum seekers and young people with migrant backgrounds. The Welcome Through Football project will work to ensure all participants are physically and socially active in their European communities and prepare them for entering the European labour market. As previously mentioned, the project will use the current best practices from our previous project, and then provide further testing and delivery phases to prove the best practice methodology on a European level. The project will also train the participating staff members in the newly established European methodology and develop ‘train the trainer’ educational courses that will be free and exploitable by organisations and sports clubs across Europe.
The Welcome Through Football will further develop the 3 step Welcome Through Football Methodology and test the complete methodology multiple times during the five delivery phases of this project, allowing for more significant data gathering and improve the sustainability of the project outcomes. The consortium size has also increased to a total of ten project partners, meaning delivery will take place in nine European communities across six different countries. This will ensure significant impact across Europe and provide a wide range of country-specific feedback that will benefit Europe as a whole.
Welcome Through Football will directly impact social inclusion in sport, and provide the opportunities for refugees, asylum seekers and migrants across Europe to be socially and physically active within their new community. EFDN and its partners will build upon the many successes and best practices demonstrated in the previous Welcome Through Football 2019 project to create a long-lasting, sustainable methodology that can improve communities in Europe for many years to come.