First transnational project meeting for the Football Works project

First transnational project meeting for the Football Works project

This week, between the 11^th April and the 13^th of April, the first transnational project meeting for the Football Works project took place in Southampton, England, attended by the European football organizations including EFDN.

The Saints Foundation offered to host the seminar at the St Mary’s Stadium. The aim of the seminar was to make all partners from Bayer 04 Leverkusen, JVA Wuppertal-Ronsdorf, Stiftelsen Valerenga Football Samfunn, Ministerie van Justitie en Veiligheid [DJI], Bohemian FC, FC Emmen, Saints Foundation, KPZ Sremska Mitrovica, and EFDN more familiar with the project, its aims and objectives, methodology, reporting and analysis.

The Football Works project is about increasing the level of physical activity of prisoners while serving time in prison and reducing the number of recidivists, who are released from the prison system, reintegrating them into the society, a safe environment and the EU labour market thanks to the appeal and value of football. By using the power of football to promote sport and society values, the participants in the project will reduce the crime rates and the risk of reoffenders’ actions.

Due to a rather high re-offending rate of ex-prisoners, the project follows a 3-step methodology with the aims of providing more sporting sessions in multiple prisons across Europe. The 1st step is to combine football sessions with educational programs to teach important soft skills. The next step is to provide prisoners with working opportunities once they are released with the help of the football clubs. Last but not least, the third step is to improve health-enhancing physical activity participation inside prisons within Europe and to target the human rights’ policies;

The seminar was very successful in achieving its objectives and multiple follow-up meetings as well as training webinars have been planned in the next few months to guarantee a successful delivery of the project. The next prison that will host the Football Works festival in September, 2023 will be in Veenhuizen, the Netherlands.