- The event, which was held on 10 and 13 May, was attended by professionals from the Red Cross and Barcelona City Council’s Nausica programme, refugees and students of fields linked to social inclusion.
- The participants experienced the Socio-Sports Meetings developed by the COMMUNITY project of the University of Barcelona, aimed to promote the social inclusion of refugees in their host community through sports activity.
Barcelona, 10 and 13 May 2023.
Staff from the Red Cross and Barcelona City Council’s Nausica programme participated in the Socio-Sports Meetings implemented by the University of Barcelona (UB) between refugees and students of social issues, education, pedagogy, psychology and sports.
The training seminar was held at the University of Barcelona’s Mundet Campus and was attended by more than 20 participants from many different countries: Senegal, Brazil, Bolivia, the Philippines, Algeria, Guinea, Peru, Afghanistan and Spain. Francesc Buscà, the director of the ‘COMMUNITY’ project and a professor at the UB Faculty of Education, also participated.
The event was organised so that organisations working on refugee and asylum issues experience the Socio-Sports Meetings and assess the possibility of establishing an agreement with the UB to replicate them within their organisations.
Both the Red Cross and Barcelona City Council’s Nausica programme work on welcoming and supporting refugees and asylum seekers to ensure that they have an independent life and integrate into society.
«It is a very fun and enriching experience where people with different cultures, languages and ages socialise naturally», said the Red Cross psychologist during the evaluation of the Socio-Sports Meeting.
Precisely, one of the objectives of these Meetings is to promote coexistence and mutual knowledge between refugees and their host community to reduce the segregation of society and fight against the racism, xenophobia and discrimination suffered by these people.
As Francesc Buscà, the director of the ‘COMMUNITY’ project, explained at the conference, “the methodology used in the Socio-Sports Meetings is based on a different concept of sport than usual, because it leaves aside competitiveness to foster positive and healthy links through cooperative motor-skill games”.
“When activities based on standard sports are carried out, such as football or basketball, people tend to group into teams according to their origin, which promotes segregation and can cause conflicts to appear”, said Professor Buscà.
“Using cooperative motor-skill games also establishes the dynamics of collaboration and opposition typical of these sports, but as the roles of the participants change much more often, competition takes a backseat and cohesion and rapprochement are promoted”, the project director explained.
Socio-Sports Meetings as a tool for social inclusion
The UB Socio-Sports Meetings are a socio-educational intervention model based on physical activity that promotes social cohesion between refugees and their host communities. Among other benefits, they promote social inclusion and facilitate the well-being of these people, using sport as a tool for inclusion and social transformation.
This model, which has been developed since 1993, has been replicated in other universities in Catalonia, Spain, Europe and Latin America. The aim of this seminar is to move it beyond the university environment and to replicate it in organisations that work directly with refugees and asylum seekers.
The event was organised by the ‘COMMUNITY’ project of the University of Barcelona’s Faculty of Education, which enjoys the collaboration of Fundació Solidaritat UB and is financed by the European Union. The training seminar also had the support of the UB’s Institute of Professional Development (IDP-ICE).
Photographs of the seminar
