SPIN Youth – European Youth Training Academy in Rome, 4.-7.10.24

The first highlight of our Erasmus+ project Empower Diverse Youth - Build-up Youth Participation and Inclusion in Sport Organisations (SPIN Youth) is coming up: two youth coordinators from each of the 8 project countries will come to Rome from 4-7 October to take part in a European Youth Training. The aim is to impart knowledge that the 16 youth coordinators will apply in the project in order to achieve the following project objectives:

1. Identify and remove barriers to participation for young people from diverse backgrounds, both in playing and non-playing positions.
2. Facilitate youth-led knowledge production and support and promote young people's participation in the design, delivery and decision making in sport.
3. Raising awareness, networking and building the capacity of sport organisations to engage and connect with young people from diverse backgrounds and create inclusive sport environments.

SPIN Youth is essentially based on the principle of youth co-creation. In order to involve the target group as closely as possible - young people with diverse backgrounds, e.g. refugees, migrants and ethnic minorities - the young people themselves should experience from the outset how measures can be created and implemented that make access to sports clubs, associations and programmes as open, barrier-free and free from discrimination as possible.
 

Young people develop a non-discriminatory sports environment

After the training in Rome, the youth coordinators will motivate 3-5 other young people from the target group in their respective countries of residence to participate in the development of ideas, action plans and initial, inclusive pilot events in the form of a ‘Youth Panel’. This is done in close coordination with selected clubs and associations to ensure that the ideas of young people can be implemented in practice. The next highlight of this innovative collaboration is the European Week of Sport 2025 (23-30 September), during which these pilot offers for more social inclusion of young people with diverse backgrounds in sport will be presented and implemented with the support of all project partners and as part of a coordinated campaign.