Educating Parents, Leaders And Young people

ongoing

Sport participation represents an integral part of the lives of millions of Europeans,and is a tool to promote community cohesion, social inclusion and education to diversity among youth. However, the lack of fairplay and social phenomena like discrimination and intolerance represent a barrier to it. In order to avoid these negative dynamics, it is important to intervene at the level of significant educational models in children’s sport life, namely coaches and parents. The main aim of EPLAY is to promote fairplay behaviours among parents of children aged 8-14 years playing football, with a special look to interethnic and gender discrimination. In so doing, it aims to transform parents in active role models and increase the extent to which football clubs are cohesive educational environments. The collaborative partnership is composed of 3 National Football Federation (Lithuania as the applicant, Republic of North Macedonia, Malta), 2 sports association specifically dealing with the grassroots level (UEFA Foundation for Children, Athletes Inspire Children), a training body (Formodena), 1 university with expertise in social inclusion (UNIMORE). The project is supported by UEFA and by the Football Association of Ireland, which is deeply involved with grassroots and coach training. This diverse partnership will allow finding a methodology that is effective, scientifically founded and easily to be widely adopted in the EU. EPLAY acts via the education of parents and athletes at the grassroots level. It is based on the development of a methodology providing coaches with the skills to involve and educate parents, making them fellow-role models in actively promoting fairplay and social inclusion through sports, ultimately benefitting children. The methodology will translate in a free online course and guidelines in 6 languages and will be widely disseminated throughout EU, also taking advantage of multiplier sport events attended to by famous football players as role models