Sport It Right: stories of social inclusion, cultural integration and equal opportunity in sport

Background For UISP Emilia-Romagna, SPORT UNION, SARI, SUSA, and HIC SUNT LEONES fostering social inclusion and promoting equal opportunities through sport have always meant assuring a safe and welcoming environment for all those people who have suffered from social exclusion and have been victims of hate crimes due to their origins, skin colours, religious belief, gender, sexual orientation, age and ability. In the countries of the partnership this kind of welcoming environment is far from being real. Objectives Sport It Right Consortium believed that training and awareness-raising activities aiming to combat discrimination and foster social inclusion through sport could help identify common and shared values of acceptance of diversity and mutual respect among young citizens. The project targeted this aim through the storytelling of meaningful positive stories of sportsmen and sportswomen that can spread messages of tolerance, equality and inclusion and by presenting these athletes as positive models. Implementation The idea was to identify positive sports stories, through appropriate research, and use them as an educational tool to foster social inclusion and to contribute to equal opportunities achievement. The methodology used in the project was the one of storytelling directed to young sportspeople linked to sports clubs. Ambassadors of these positive stories were equally young people from sports clubs so to implement a peer-to-peer communication approach thanks to the use of cards, posters and videos. Achievements The activities carried in the project were the following:archival research and collection of relevant sport stories in each country according to different topics (racism, sexism, social inclusion, omo-transphobia);16 flashcards used to tell the story of significant sportsmen and sportswomen;4 posters collecting the stories of the chosen athletes;4 videos (one per country) of the storytelling in sports clubs;3 videos collecting participants' feedbacks;dissemination events in each country