Youth sports for breaking cultural barriers and active citizenship

<< Background >>1Inevitably the present facts on the ground speak for themselves. It is estimated that the number of asylum applications is around 1.8 million people. The vast majority are young people. If we are talking about how the activities of sports may assist these young people to integrate themselves into the social fabric, then it follows that integration through sports requires extensive research along with best practices on how to bring in mission these processes as effectively as possible. Our work and scope of this project was clearly based on the fact that these people will become productive citizens if then are given the venues to do so.2First of all because the whole framework of this particular project was interesting and quite appealing to us and we indeed believed that why working towards exploring the objectives not only would we able to contribute something but it appeared to us that there is real promise through sports in conjunction with integration. We would have the chance to create innovative programs and explore a variety of possibilities on how to be or become more effective in regards to the goals we underlined. And by the end of the project,<< Objectives >>Assume that all of a sudden, many young people (asylum seekers/immigrants) come into a local community and that their number is not so small. Unless the state or the local village/community/city gives them the tools to feel welcome and integrate themselves then they will enter into a ghetto mentality thus what follows is to isolate themselves. It is a given that many new immigrants might not speak the language or have limited capability in speaking the language. It follows that most likely they will not know the local culture, norms, history, customs of the land they came to reside. The fastest, cheapest, most productive way to associate the new locals (immigrants) is to engage them in sports activities who does not like for example to play soccer (basketball or for that matter any sports). If an immigrant father sees his/her child get accepted to play soccer in the local football club for example, he/she will feel very quickly accepted his/her family will not feel hostility and they will not attain an isolation mentality. Sport or a format that breaks down inhibitions both from the native local people and the new arrivals of people. In that way structural and systemic changes may attain a rapid pace using common values and quite << Implementation >>1.Initially the consortium of partners conducted a good practice survey from all respective countries and/or other relevant research in order to see/comprehend/understand how prior/pre-existing set projects weaved themselves into the fabric of local communities. How sports were used for the integration of migrants with what results. Most important we tried to find out weak points/deficiencies/how and if then some of them failed. What was needed for success and improvement. That was a critical initial start.2.Secondly after bringing together a sizeable volume of work that was out there via research/open sources the second activity was to jointly develop a curriculum “from theory to practice” that brought extensive material/knowledge/research in order to develop amore finer version of youth sports programs in a structured/easily understood way so as to have local community leaders that can use it effectively/easily in relation to sports/migrants/integration.3.Thirdly an in-service training program was developed in order to ensure that auxiliary staff such as social workers/psychologists etc youth workers/coaches could successfully implement in their respective communities the curriculum that was developed. Instructions were clear-cut-easy to follow-user friendly guide.4.Finally, a policy paper was developed in order to have a geometric/sustainable/systemic impact for use by the local stakeholders/policy makers. All relevant materials that were needed so as to have the people who have the power to be able to take easily decisions on behalf of immigrants and respective local communities.<< Results >>1.A lot of research has been done on the topic of migrants/sports/how local community integrates them. Other relevant research from across a variety of nations with experience on this particular topic. Primarily each partner tried to gather all research on the topic for their respective countries. We created a big database for this issue.2.After all, gathering of research the partners proceeded to create a curriculum that it’s goal was to procreate innovative/structured/easy to follow approach to the integration of migrants in association with local youth communities. The issue was to minimize failures/expand success stories. Streamlined the program so as to confer easy/workout manuals that would assist conceptually all relevant stakeholders.3.The concrete output that we were looking so far was manuals on how to have trained social workers/youth workers/psychologists/trainers/coaches that would provide substantial applied practices/approaches in interventions/practice strategies that would be of use to the people that handle sports integration with migrants in local communities so as to attain success and avoid failures.4.Our consortium finished/produced a policy paper that is strategic immature to be used by decision/policy makers in relation to sports as a fundamental way/guide in order to bring about easier/qualitative change of migrants in the local communities.