Football Including Refugees project

We believe sport is a universal language !

It is a perfect means to boost social inclusion and can contribute to bringing people together, regardless of nationality, citizenship, cultural background, legal status or any other variable of the likes. Through the FIRE project (Football Including REfugees), a 2-year initiative financed by the Erasmus+ programme, we aim to promote football as means of inclusion, participation, socialisation and access to sport for asylum-seekers, refugees and migrants at a local level.

Following the extensive political and media coverage of increased migratory influxes across Europe, FIRE seeks to contribute to the welcome and inclusion of newcomers through football, a widely untapped medium that we believe to be a gamechanger. While this target group remains much less present in sport and volunteering activities than non-migrants, they nonetheless remain to be the social spheres in which migrants and refugees are the most present.

Founded on a strong consortium of diverse project partners, FIRE’s main objective is to support grassroots football organisations and foster cross-sector partnerships between all involved sectors by creating a network for mutually enriching participants. FIRE will be creating a freely accessible MOOC (Massive Open Online Course) specifically elaborated for grassroots football clubs and organisations who seek some support and guidance to implement an initiative, or programme, which strives to include refugees, migrants and asylum-seekers!