Welcome to the pitch

Specific action dedicated to newly-arrived migrants

PROJECT OWNER

Name of the project owner: Oltalom sport Association
Status of the project owner:  National NGO
Area of work of the project owner: Sport / Migration / Youth / Social integration / Intercultural exchange / Health / Gender equality
Website of Oltalom sport Association

PROJECT

 Hungary
Geographic scope of project: National
Project objective: Acceed to skills for labour market/employment / Promote social diversity / Educate and transmit values through sport / Practice a physical activity for physical/mental health / Develop intercultural relations and/or intercultural competency
Types of sport or physical activity carried out: Football (regular training sessions, fairplay turnaments)
Partnership / supports: Grants (EC, UEFA Foundation for children) / Other partner (Oltalom Charity Society)
Project duration: 1 year
Project status: Underway
Supervising staff: Professionals
Summary of the project: Oltalom Sport Association runs two project with complex football-based activities targeting unaccompanied minors and refugees residing in Hungary to enhance their physical and mental well-being and social integration.  Our coaches hold regular weekly football trainings in homes and public pitches to improve health, wellbeing, Hungarian language skills and self-confidence of participants.
We organize 4+6 Fair Play Football Tournaments where refugee teams and training participants play together with local Hungarian teams (from local authorities, police, ngos, churches, etc.) applying special, so-called football3 rules with a strong emphasis on fair play. Teams are encouraged to demonstrate fair play and start a dialogue with each-other. This direct experience can reduce stereotypes against refugees and provide an opportunity to build new social connections. Tournaments are organized in locations with larger refugee communities and sensitize members of host society.
For unaccompanied minors we organize a summer camp together with our young Hungarian participants where through playing football and free-time activities, language skills and social connections of participants will improve.
Adult participants are offered social work and job coaching in order to enhance their housing, health and social issues and employability. Besides they  are provided with “Integration through sport” workshops once a month for 8 months with the following topics: life skills, employability, fair play mediation in football, democratic values and gender equality.
We are compiling a “Social Integration Through Sports for Professionals” handbook: a collection of good practices and compilation of Oltalom’s methods of social integration through sport, with both printed and electronic version for multiplying the impacts of the project.
We are also conducting monitoring and evaluation studies of to evaluate the impact of the projects.

TARGET GROUP

Country of origin: Participants are mainly from Afghanistan, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Iran, Iraq, Nigeria, Somalia, Syria, Turkey
Types of migration: Refugee / Asylum seeker
Target beneficiary: Children / Teenager-Young people
Target age group: 5-10 / 11-20 / 21-30 / 31-60