PROJECT TITLE: Sport hAPPenings. New meeting places for young people of all nationalities
CLIENT: Ministry of Labor and Social Policies
PRINCIPAL AUTHOR: PGS Salesian Youth Sports Club
ASSOCIATED ENTITY: Labos Social Policy Laboratory Foundation
ADDRESSEES: 400 young people, including Italians and first and second generation immigrants
DURATION: 18 months
OBJECTIVES OF THE PROJECT: to promote social integration for young people of all nationalities through the spread of conventional and unconventional sports in places of youth aggregation
PROJECT PHASES: The project, still in progress, aims to promote the social integration of young immigrant boys, in particular second generation, through the creation and development of places of youth aggregation, animated by conventional and unconventional sports activities, located in school premises or low-traffic public spaces.
The places and activities carried out in the public spaces will also be promoted through an app with social network functions, which will help to expand participation and allow these places to become points of reference for the local community.
Unconventional sports (street basketball, Dodgeball, flag football, freesbee ultimate, etc.) lend themselves to favoring sports in territorial contexts without spaces and opportunities for meeting and gathering available to young people. This is due to their wide accessibility – they can be practiced outdoors and practically everywhere – and because of the limited number of rules that encourage creativity and freedom of expression through movement. They are also sports that are often popular in other countries, therefore potentially familiar to many young people of foreign origin, who, however, until now, had not had opportunities to practice them, except among compatriots.
For this reason PGS intends to animate also through these sports of places that can become a reference point for young Italians and foreigners of an entire territorial community, thus nurturing the fruitful encounter and mutual exchange between different cultures, and promoting the possibility of develop a sense of shared community, even through targeted workshops with children.
PERSON TO CONTACT: Anna Calvaruso