After identifying the need to enhance social inclusion and equal opportunities for refugees and disadvantaged young local people we focused on fostering and increasing their participation through sports activities. For this reason, we created our football team in order to create a constructive dialogue between these social groups and professionals working in the field of Youth and Sport, driving a change towards an inclusive system by reinforcing the idea of sport as a tool for social inclusion.
Although the refugee crisis has been widespread in Greece since 2015, the lack of an integration plan by the state is evident. All these years, the civil society organizations have made various efforts through projects aimed at social inclusion and the smooth integration of refugees and immigrants into Greek and European society. However, the main problem is the lack of a holistic integration plan in order for these people to be integrated.
With immediate and interactive feedback and contact from the refugee communities, we know that refugees are excluded in many areas of social life. So, we decided to use sports as a mean of social inclusion and more specifically football. Through the football team, participants manage to escape from their difficult daily lives, while finding opportunities to engage in an activity that interests them.
Although the football team was created through funding from a European program (Erasmus+) that was completed in 2018, people's willingness to continue playing led us to the decision to retain the team, even when there was no funding. Our goal is to create a sustainable framework in which refugees will engage in sports while interacting with their local neighbours, thereby eliminating feelings of alienation.
