On 20th September, Girl Power celebrated the European Week of Sport by organising a one-day sports festival for girls and women from many cultural backgrounds, with the main focus being on immigrants and refugees. 

The event started with music, fun football and basketball games, along with a football freestyler show, and a workshop for mothers.

After a series of games with a DJ playing music in the background, a mini football tournament took place where all the participants were divided into small groups. There were special prizes for each team, which were handed out at the end of the tournament. 

More than 60 women and girls from different age group participated at the event, receiving a jersey with a goodie bag, snacks and drinks on arrival. 

The participants enjoyed the event, with many saying in their feedback that they would like these activities to happen more often.

Girl Power and European Week of Sport collaborated well together, and EWOS Denmark raised awareness about the event on their SoMe channels. 

The REWINS (Refugee Women Inclusion through Sports) partners have made a productive start to 2020, after setting up several new women’s football teams at the turn of the year.

Organization Earth launched their team last September during the Goal for Global Goals Tournament at the European Week of Sports.

But despite a number of players joining the side at that point, a regular time and place for the training sessions couldn’t be found until January, when they sourced a pitch and recruited a female coach.

Away from the pitch, a trip was organised to go and watch the Greece national women’s team train and have a Q+A with the players and coach afterwards.

The next activity will see the Greece squad visit the Skaramangas refugee camp, where most of the Organization Earth players live.

Meanwhile in Italy, Polisportiva San Precario set up a team of ten refugee women last November, after generating a lot publicity to register for the side through flyers and online promotion. Training started on 22nd January, but the Covid-19 outbreak meant that only four of the five scheduled sessions could take place.

During this period, the players showed signs of great improvement and five more women joined the squad.

Over in Denmark, Girl Power Organisation partnered up with two refugee centres in Sjællsmark and Sandholm, and were also assisted by Danish Superliga side FC Nordsjaelland to recruit players for their team.

A number of volunteer coaches trained the side, and Girl Power were also able to run educational workshops, tours and sightseeing trips for the players.

An extensive data collection and research study has taken place as part of the REWINS (REfugee Women INclusion through Sports) to find best practices for inclusion of refugee women in sport.

The Research Study took place to sum up the results of the data collection and best practices collated from Greece, Denmark, Italy and other countries, on the subject of how to include refugee women in host communities through sport.

The EU project is called REWINS (REfugee Women INclusion through Sports) and the aim is to promote positive attitudes towards refugee women in sports. From January to December 2020 the Fare network is part of this EU project along with partners Organization Earth, Polisportiva San Precario and Girl Power. The focus of it is on the participation of women refugees in Football.

The main point is to reduce the challenges that limit refugee participation in sport activities and to act as a cornerstone for their integration within the local society. This project focuses in particular on female refugees that normally suffer from higher barriers while they try to participate in sports.

REWINS partners Polisportiva began by submitting questionnaires around organisations in Italy that are helping or coordinating with refugees. Their aim was to obtain an overview of the refugees’ possible interest in practicing sports. Polisportiva reported that many refugees held fears about their situation and what will happen to them, some could be displaced in other cities, some might lose support from the shelters. Their situation in Italy can be highly unstable.

Polisportiva also worked, and continue to work, on the development of materials for the Training Course that will be developed during the project.

At the REWINS’ second Transnational Meeting all partners met to create roundtables for discussing the main points and the structure for the Training Course. The project’s core themes and topics were discussed and data from the questionnaires was analysed, as well as the exchange of ideas and good practices.

Organisation Earth, another project partner from Greece, also carried out several actions regarding the implementation of REWINS. Being the lead organisation for the research study and collection of good practices, Organization Earth were able collect the data needed from refugee women, visiting the refugee camp in Skaramangas, Greece in order to do this. There, they were able to meet and discuss with refugee women.

Together with the data collection, Organization Earth also conducted a first recruitment of participants for the team which took part in activities at the event they organised on the occasion of the European Week of Sport. This took place in central Athens using football as a means of promoting inclusion, diversity and sustainable development goals.

To download and read the study please click the following link: https://farenet.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/Rewins_ResearchStudy.pdf