Fare member organisations in Austria, Finland, Poland and Ukraine have been successful in applications for the inaugural #FootballPeople development grants aimed at promoting impactful and regular football activities around the campaign.

Chrazaszczyki Sports Club (Poland), Junge Musliminnen Österreich (Austria), Liga Tolerantnosti (Ukraine) and Monaliiku (Finland) will each receive 5000 EUR to run regular football activities with marginalised communities – these will include football trainings sessions, social events, workshops – for a period of seven months.

The new grant scheme supports work with ethnic minorities, including refugees and Roma, LGBTI people, or women. Grants can also be used to develop and pilot activities and educational resources.

Throughout the period, grant recipients will be working together with Fare, who will provide support and guidance to increase their developmental and delivering capacity.

All projects will round off with an event scheduled to take place during the #FootballPeople weeks between 11-25 October 2018.

The grant is for a prolonged project starting as early as 1 April and ending on 31 October 2018 the latest. Successful groups and organisations may apply for follow-up funding for 2019.

Grant recipients will receive training and guidance from Fare on areas including fundraising, PR and organisational development and planning.

2018 #FootballPeople Development Grant recipients are:

Chrazaszczyki Sports Club 

Community club Chrazaszczyki will run a Women*'s Football Academy, the first of its kind in Poland, between April and October 2018, delivering a total of 16 weekly training sessions for women of all ages and skills in two-month cycles - April-May and September-October.

The trainings will take place in the Sports Center OSiR Targowek.

At the end of the project, the Warsaw-based club will organise a Football v Homophobia festival to mark the #FootballPeople weeks, through two main activities: a panel debate about queer/lesbian visibility in sport and a football tournament.

Junge Musliminnen Österreich 

Youth ethnic minority group Junge Musliminnen Österreich will be addressing the barriers to participation for Muslim women in sport.

They will start a football team as part of their “Bleib fit!” (Stay fit!) project aimed at promoting healthy lifestyles and taster sessions in several sports.

A launch event will kick-start the project in April. It will come to an end in October with a one-day event held during the Fare action weeks.

Monaliiku 

Multicultual women’s right group Monaliiku will start a pilot football group for women of ethnic minority and refugee backgrounds living in Helsinki. The group will train once a week and the sessions will combine football and aerobic workouts.

Activities will start in April and will complete in October when Monaliiku hosts the third Refugee Women Festival as part of their #FootballPeople activities.

Liga Tolerantnosti

Liga Tolerantnosti’s #FootballPeople development grant will use football as an interactive model to promote the inclusion of internally displaced communities living in Ivano-Frankivsk.

Football sessions will be delivered every two-weeks in the sport centre ‘Olymp’ and ‘Wonder World’ from April to October to players of all genders, ages and skills.

A manual will be produced detailing the methodology used.

In October, after six months of coaching, Liga Tolerantnosti will organise a festival in Pidmykhaylya and nominate ten ambassadors to deliver football exercises to 40-50 youth and workshops based on the methodology used.

The manual will be launched on the same day.