The project “SmatchS: Sports organizations Matching Social inclusion issues” (SmatchS) is an initiative of six organizations from sport, social and academic areas, willing to contribute with their joint efforts to encouraging social inclusion and equal opportunities in sport. The area of the intervention of the project consortium is social inclusion of migrant children of 8-14 years old by providing them with facilitated access to sport activities.

The participating organizations working together for the 30month duration of the project are the following:

• CEPE – Sports Council of Pla de l’Estany (Coordinator-Catalonia, Spain)
• OFIS – office intercommunal des sports Pays de Redon (France)
• SAD – Sport Algés e Dafundo (Portugal)
• UniGraz – Karl-Franzens-Universität Graz, (Austria)
• Municipality of Pegeia, (Cyprus)
• EAS SEGAS CYCLADES (Greece)

The main project objective is to develop and apply to the local contexts a Practical Intervention Methodology (SmatchS Methodology) of social inclusion of children with migratory background through sport activities by creating synergies between grassroots sport and social organizations as well as local authorities from Spain, France, Portugal, Cyprus and Greece.

One of the important elements of the project implementation in general, and development of the project methodology in particular, is the collaboration with the academic partner (University of Graz, Austria) for providing effective data collection, validation and evaluation of the impact of sport activities for social inclusion of children in migration.

Applying SmatchS Methodology to the work of grassroots sport organizations, project partners plan to develop and achieve the following results:

• One Practical Intervention Methodology that would promote access to continuous sports practice in local sport entities for migrant children at risk of social exclusion
• One evaluation Model of impact of sport activities on social inclusion of migrant children
• Digital Guidelines “Sports organizations Matching Social inclusion issues”, based on Moodle Platform with a short-term online course (MOOC) and Online Collaboration platform.
• One Study on impact of sport on social inclusion of migrant children: conclusions and recommendations

In numbers:

• 420 migrant children of 8-14 years old benefited by the Joint SmatchS Methodology and having improved their social inclusion indicators;
• 50 coaches across Europe trained on social inclusion approaches towards implementation of sport activites for migrant children via offline and online educational activities;
• Strenthened networking oppotunities between project partners, other sport and social organizations and local authorities across Europe, working on the issues of social inclusion of migrant children. At least 30 new collaborations within the project are expected to be developed.