EFDN’s Welcome through Football project is featured in EU Report

EFDN’s Welcome through Football project is featured in EU Report

EFDN’s Welcome through Football programme features in the recently released European Commission information brochure summarising the key achievements of projects supported by the European Union under the framework of the Pilot Projects and Preparatory Actions in the field of sport between 2016 and 2019.

In the 12-month project, EFDN cooperated with 5 of its member clubs – Apollon FC, Everton in the Community, FC Emmen, KAA Gent Foundation and Werder Bremen with the purpose of sharing expertise, experiences and best practices of their community programmes that focus on young refugees.

Many inspiring projects have been funded under the EU framework and contributed to the use of the full potential of sport, by tackling radicalisation, encouraging social inclusion and integration of refugees, or by promoting European values at the municipal level. In total, 107 projects were supported between 2016 and 2019 with a total budget of EUR 12,5 million.

Welcome through Football, one of the programmes under the framework, aims to share best practices and deliver a football-based social inclusion methodology directed at reaching and working with young refugees from the ages of 7 through to 25.

All five clubs used their and expertise from other social inclusion programmes in the project and helped to develop and deliver a comprehensive football-based social inclusion methodology, as well as trained refugees to become coaches and assist with their inclusion into society and the labour market. Welcome through Football is a 3-step process involving:

1. Socialisation to sport – providing football offerings for young refugees of both genders related to their specific requirements such as language skills or the possibility of trauma.
2. Socialisation in sport – working on team structure, giving more responsibility to participants and offering additional steps during training sessions.
3. Socialisation through sport – focusing on skills that participants learn from taking part in the available offers so they qualify for further education in and outside of sport.

You can find the full report on our Online Learning Platform here. Visit the Welcome through Football project page for more details on the EFDN project.