Last Thursday (20/6) at Malmö University, Eos Cares’ Projektledare Axel Wallin gave a very interesting presentation on the program’s work, talking to participants of the ENGSO’s (European Non-Governmental Sports Organisation) project “RISE” (Refugee Integration through Sport in Europe).
RISE is a European Youth Exchange financed by Erasmus+ through the Swedish youth agency MUCF. It took place in Malmö from 17-23 of June, overlapping with the World Day of Refugees (20 June). The project aims to develop skills and competences of 30 youngsters from different backgrounds and different countries (Sweden, Finland, Italy, Greece, Turkey and Hungary), increase their knowledge on the situation of refugees and on using sports as a medium for social inclusion. ENGSO Youth, together with its partners (BAIS-Hungary, Altropallone ASD Onlus-Italy, MPMTO-Finland, SciCo-Greece, Marmara University Experiential Training Student Club-Turkey) have developed the project building on the needs of disadvantaged young people who tend to face social exclusion, risks of radicalization, substance abuse and unemployment.
The main goals of RISE are to fight against prejudices and discrimination of disadvantaged young people through sports, while improving their soft skills and knowledge and creating positive atmosphere fostering inclusion, active citizenship and participation. On top of that, the project aspires to support youngsters to take an active role and become youth leaders in their local communities and demonstrate positive development avenues for their young peers.
Eos Cares is a live example of integration through sports and of how a sports club can provide an impactful contribution to society. Sports is a great tool to tackle discrimination and all the other challenges refugees might face on their welcome countries and Eos Cares has succeeded since 2016 in becoming a social hub for everyone. In addition to that, Eos Cares' goal is to spread its knowledge widely to other sport associations and municipalities and inspire them to similar initiatives, as well as influence decision-makers regarding prioritization of resources and support for sports associations (read about the Vinnova project).
In his presentation, Axel Wallin went through the aim, the values, the structure and the activities of Eos Cares program. This led to a lot of questions from the young participants, who were really interested in Eos Cares’ ways of keeping up and running and got as well motivated to introduce related actions in their home countries' clubs.
* Below you can see more pictures from the lecture:
