Follow-up report: Come Together ‘Sport - Youth Work - Social Learning’

Under the motto ‘Together for Social Fair Play’, we welcomed 17 participants from organisations such as Kicken ohne Grenzen, Move on to Inclusion, Vienna Youth Centres, Breaking Grounds, Neuer Start, ÖFB, Verein Miteinander, Streetwork Wien and Play Together Now and many more to an inspiring exchange between experts and practitioners from sport and youth work.

After a brief welcome, the evening began with an input from Michael Schmied, who spoke about current social challenges in the context of preventing extremism in sport. His contribution highlighted the effects of polarisation in society and the importance of prevention work in sport.

The input was followed by an open discussion in which the participants reflected on the current and recurring challenges of their work. Many organisations reported how difficult it has become to get young people interested in regular sporting activities. Once again, it became clear that martial arts has become a central element of youth work in and through sport. The funding landscape - which is often still conservative in sport - was also discussed, which often makes creative approaches and the establishment of projects that precisely follow the pulse of the times and the trends of young people in order to pick them up where they are in life impossible.

It was discussed how low-threshold programmes and creative approaches can be used to counteract this development. The importance of cooperation between sports clubs, schools and youth work facilities was also emphasised in order to better pool existing resources and use existing sports facilities during free periods.

The evening ended in a relaxed atmosphere with a get-together where wishes, ideas and visions for the future were collected. Many participants expressed the desire for stronger networking and regular exchange formats in order to learn from each other and jointly develop solutions for the challenges in sport and youth work. Ideas for interdisciplinary projects that combine sport with education and inclusion were suggested, as were joint events that promote dialogue and diversity.

We would like to thank everyone for their participation and hope to be able to organise another exchange meeting next year.
Hanna, Stefan & Michaela