PlayTogetherNow

Action accessible to all including newly-arrived migrants

PROJECT OWNER

Name of the project owner: Joe Schramml

Status of the project owner:  Local Association

Area of work of the project owner: Sport / Migration / Youth / Social inclusion / Intercultural exchange / Health
Website of project owner

PROJECT

Austria

Project objective: Accede to skills for labour market/employment / Promote social diversity / Develop language skills / Educate and transmit values through sport / Practice a physical activity for physical/mental health / Develop intercultural relations and/or intercultural competency / Promote access to volunteering in sport

Types of sport or physical activity carried out: football

Partnership / supports: Grants (public grants) / Human resources

Project duration: 2 years (start: 1.10.2015)

Project status: Underway

Supervising staff: Volunteers

Summary of the project: PlayTogetherNow is a non-profit organisation that focuses on football and leisure activities for young refugees and European youth. Roughly 30 volunteers and +200 refugees come together at least 6 times per week. PlayTogetherNow offers inclusive football trainings with focus on FairPlay elements and entertains a theatre group. The non-profit organisation believes in the power of football to create spaces of tolerance and empower people. Football is used as a tool to build bridges and bring people from different cultural backgrounds together. The regular PlayTogetherNow trainings are open to everyone, regardless their gender or abilities and are designed by qualified coaches. One of the main goals is to give structure to the newly arrived youth and to create opportunities of being part of social networks. PlayTogetherNow believes that pursuing common goals can mobilize positive energies. Therefore, we participate in an amateur football league. Our two teams consist of players from Afghanistan, Iraq, Sierra Leone, Somalia and Syria as well as Austria, Italy, Germany, Belgium. The mixture of different heritages creates the necessity to communicate in German which enables the initial contact with the language. The fruitful cooperation with Teco7, one of the many cooperation partners, resulted in the foundation of an under14 team which plays under the name of PlayTogetherNow-Teco7. Putting joy, creativity, technical skills and self- esteem on first place the Teco7 freestyle football school fits together perfectly with the PlayTogetherNow mission. PlayTogetherNow participants are given the opportunity to attend the Teco7 youth freestyle-football training courses with focus on learning technical, social and pedagogical skills. The future youth coaches are supposed to play a key part in our organisation as role models and advisors for the younger generation. Additionally, PlayTogetherNow entertains the theatre group Theater der Träume which performs regularly. Theater der Träume excites the audience with their own plays about the struggles of everyday life and the chellanges of migrants. It fosters the creative potential of young asylum seekers and provides them with a platform to express themselves. The volunteers of PlayTogetherNow understand the organisation as an opportunity for refugees to make initial, low-threshold contact with locals as well as the basis for the long integration processes that refugees must face.

TARGET GROUP

Country of origin: Not specified

Type of migration: Refugee / Asylum seeker

Target beneficiary: Teenager-Young people

Target age group:11-20 / 21-30