Grassroots football interventions become part of the European project FIRE!

As the it unfolds, ‘Football Including REfugees’ (FIRE) project offers organisations the opportunity to participate in Fare network’s #FootballPeople weeks and become an official part of Erasmus + FIRE project, by awarding four grants to local interventions using football to include refugees, migrants or asylum-seekers!

The #FootballPeople weeks unite supporters, clubs, players, minority groups, NGOs and others to stand against discrimination and for equality and inclusion. With over 150,000 direct participants and more than 2,000 events in over 60 countries, it is the largest campaign of its kind in football.

The ‘Football Including REfugees’ (FIRE) project promotes football as a means of inclusion, participation, socialisation and access to sport for asylum-seekers, refugees and migrants. The main objective of the project is to support grassroots football organisations and foster cross-sector partnerships between every involved sector by creating a network for mutual enrichment of participants. To do so, 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!

Having started in January 2019, the project brings together a strong consortium that includes Sport and Citizenship Think tank, the Fare Network; Royal Belgian Football Association; Scottish Football Association’ LaLiga Foundation; Romanian Football Federation; Fundacja Dla Wolnosci, and the ESSCA School of Management. In addition to our project partners the project received the endorsement and official support of UEFA, the DFB-Stiftung Egidius Braun, and Alliance Europa during the application stage.

Get involved!

We are looking for grassroots organisations who are interested in applying to officially participate in Fare Network’s #FootballPeople weeks- grants and support are available through the FIRE project. We are specifically looking for organisations from Belgium, Romania, Scotland and Spain to organise activities around the inclusion of refugees/ migrants through football.

This year the #FootballPeople weeks will take place from the 10^th to the 24th October. The deadline to apply is 11 August.

For more information please contact info@farenet.org