Further Football Including Refugees

Background While the registered numbers of refugee and migrant arrivals into the EU have decreased since the 2015-16 peaks, migration flows are to continue to be a pressing issue. Political or economic instability, and environmental changes may constitute the original ‘push’, but the reception conditions and social inclusion opportunities remain a most pressing challenge for both newcomers and locals. If football is not the only answer to this reception crisis, it is a good tool to boost social inclusion. Objectives To continue the brilliant work done in the "FIRE" project, FIRE+ had 4 main objectives: • OBJ 1 – To assess the experience and insight of active grassroots football clubs on creating and implementing a welcome programme or initiative• OBJ 2 – To foster local activations at grassroots level• OBJ 3 – To develop, inspire and share good practices• OBJ 3 – To raise awareness and multiply experiences around sport, physical activity and exercise as tools for social change Implementation Frequent meetings were held with project partners to conduct the project activities. 4 national conferences to collect feedbacks; to identify success factors and barriers and to create a community of sharing at the European level. Each allowed to expand the FIRE+ network maintained by each partner thanks to frequent dialogues with representatives. A call for projects to support multicultural football tournaments in 4 countries has been published; these allowed the collection of good practices. Achievements -200 people reached in our 4 nationals conferences -1 Europe-wide survey on refugee support programmes in amateur football clubs (+200 responses) -3 new modules in the FIRE MOOC (Inclusion of women refugees; Inclusion of UAM; Inclusion of refugees as volunteers in the football club); for 100+ learners, a community which will keep growing. -Over 1,000 beneficiaries in pilot interventions- 5 key recommendations drawn from the project