Greece / Athens
Key-stakeholders involved:
- Eir Soccer
- GGWCup
- Equal Playing Field
- Municipality of Athens
- Hellenic Football Federation
- NGOs
- local educational institutions
- local football clubs and academies
Brief description
Implementation of the practice
Impact
Lessons learnt/recommendation
Contact details
The International Olympic Truce Centre (IOTC) was established in July 2000, following a joint initiative by Greece and the International Olympic Committee, turning the Olympic Movement’s commitment to promoting the principles of peace into tangible action. The mission of the International Olympic Truce Centre is to promote the Olympic Ideals, to serve peace and friendship and to cultivate international understanding. Hestia FC, as part of the IOTC “Sport for Protection” Programmes, is the first refugee and migrant women football team in the Balkans, founded in March 2019, in Athens.
38 women from Syria, Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, Egypt, Morocco, Algeria, Cameroon, Congo, Eritrea, Somalia, Tajikistan, Turkey and Sierra Leone have registered to the team as players. Hestia has also welcomed Greek and international volunteers, who participate in the trainings and workshops.
The activities include two football trainings per week, a weekly workshop regarding the SDGs, the Olympic values and more, as well as friendly matches with local football clubs and actions for the SDG 16: Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions, which is the SDG the team has chosen to promote. The overall aim of the project is the protection, empowerment, social integration and psychological well-being of women with less opportunities, as well as the promotion of the Olympic values and the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) through sport.
The team players live in different types of accommodation in the area of Attica such as refugee camps, apartments, shelters for refugee women. They face severe psychological trauma, they have limited social integration opportunities or interaction with the local community.
Impact 1: Include and activate refugee and migrant women in sport. Teach
and enable them to practice sports skills in order to support their protection, empowerment, social integration and psychological well-being.
Impact 2: Provide learning and employability opportunities to refugee and
migrant adults: through workshops, they are able to develop formal and informal skills, they have the opportunity for self-development and formal and informal learning that can lead to greater confidence, a bridge into further qualifications and employment, or impact in other areas.
Impact 3: Integrate and facilitate social contact between different ethnic,
religious and linguistic groups, as well as the program participants and the
European community during the friendly football matches and events as well as participation and presentations in conferences, local educational institutions and several campaigns.
Hestia FC has been identified as a best practice from UEFA and UNHCR. The following have been crucial to its success and achievements:
-Mixed coaching team, the assistant football coaches are representatives of the refugee community. This way, we were able to solve language and cultural barriers.
-Include the participants in decision-making, implementation and evaluation of the project.
Since day one, the refugee assistant coaches as well as the team’s players were able to participate in all decision expressing their ideas and desires.
-Role models: these women, after getting empowered through their participation in the project, they developed leadership skills, became role models not only for other refugee women but for women with less opportunities in general. Therefore, by giving them the opportunity to express themselves as speakers in conferences, to participate in projects’ design as advisors, to be included in European programmes as mentors, they are able to inspire and motivate others and support the development and successful implementation of similar projects.
IOTC
Katerina Salta, Sport for Protection Programme Manager
katerina@olympictruce.org
+306932308457