Inclusion does not happen of its own accord, we look at the work of six members in Bosnia, Hungary, Poland, Russia and Ukraine.
League of Tolerance (Ukraine), Human Constanta (Belarus), Mahatma Gandhi Human Rights Organisation (Hungary), Fundacja dla Wolnosci (Poland), LGBT Society (Russia) and Nova Zena (Bosnia & Herzegovina) were all awarded internal members' grants for their innovative ideas to help promote inclusion in the region.
These activities are partly funded through a partnership with Chelsea FC’s ‘Final Whistle on Hate’ initiative, and they all address the ongoing issues of racism, anti- Semitism and homophobia.
Fundacja dla Wolnosci from Warsaw, Poland have partnered with Chrząszczyki Sports Club, a women’s club, on a pilot football project that includes asylum seekers and refugees. Weekly training sessions will be held as open events that encourage people from these groups, as well as those from LGBT+ backgrounds to take part.
Supervision will be used to ensure inclusiveness and safety during sessions, coaches will give anti-discrimination training and become replicators of an inclusive message and be equipped to work with diverse groups in the future. Supervisors will also include cooperating with coaches to evaluate their work on the field. They are due to begin their activities this month.
Human Constanta’s main focus is to set up a community in the field of sport and human rights, and engage in new partnerships with amateur and professional football clubs. They are looking to get refugees more involved in football as part of their work and look to tackle the issue of anti-Semitism.
They have started the technical work involved in creating online resources, with their first activities scheduled to take place in August.
League of Tolerance have focused on helping young people from minority backgrounds to work their way into leadership roles. They plan to make an open call to recruit 15 young leaders with diverse minorities backgrounds, who will complete four-month internships as coaches and/or managers at a school in Ivano-Frankivsk, Ukraine.
The young leaders will organise a tournament within the #FootballPeople weeks and take part in a nation-wide conference, which will see them highlight how the internship and mentoring programme has aided their development. In addition, they will host a Human Rights in Football panel discussion and an EthnoLeague tournament.
The 15 young leaders will be selected for the mentorship programme was due to begin on 1st August.
The Mahatma Ghandi Human Rights Organisation is focused on empowering ethnic minority women by giving them skills, which includes enabling them to become more computer literate. Their preparations for the workshop focusing on these issues are now underway, and were scheduled to begin on 1st August.
Nova Zena have put their focus on women’s human rights and celebrating the role of Roma girls in society. They will work with the Bosnia and Herzegovina FA to train female players to become coaches and then to go back to their clubs as coaches. The first workshops are training sessions are scheduled to start next month.
The LGBT Society, Russia want to organise a celebration of the LGBT+ community by organising a football festival in four regions or cities in Russia. The festivals will include a tournament, a conference, and roundtable discussions. These activities will be undertaken in a bid to strengthen the LGBT network with their partners, but will now be undertaken next year following the postponement of UEFA Euro 2020.