Trofa / Porto / Portugal
Key-stakeholders involved:
The Trofa Rugby School is an inclusion service, which prevents the exclusion of children and young people at risk through sport – Rugby. We promote the practice of sports, intervention and monitoring around health and education free of charge, so that there are equal opportunities.
We started the project in 2013 with the aim of preventing the risk of exclusion and started with Rugby activities aimed only at children from 6 to 14 years old. As the years progressed, there was a need to intervene with a wider age group – from 4 to 18 years old.
In Rugby there is a culture of principles and values that we adopt in the project that promotes respect, cooperation and equality. Children and young people have positive experiences in activities, training, and peer groups if they regularly attend the school.
The Trofa Rugby School works in a multidisciplinary logic to reduce the risk of exclusion of children and young people. Always anchored in the practice of sports – rugby – the intervention joins daily training, educational monitoring, individual plans of school goals, monitoring families and health promotion, through sports medicine consultations, various specialties and referrals. Psychosocial support is provided in a network – schoolteachers, child promotion and protection entities, psychologists and social institutions.
You can check it out on the following schedule – a model week:
We are a team of 9 multidisciplinary coaches (2 social educators/coaches, 1 physical education teacher, 2 rugby coaches, 1 Portuguese/English teacher, 2 doctors, a physiotherapist). The team of volunteers is essential to the day-to-day of our intervention. There are 5 people and they play the role of team directors (they take care of all the logistics, clothes, attendance, etc.)
We received Syrian children who arrived in the county and the first institutional contact was at the Rugby School where they learned to speak Portuguese, taught English and Syrian expressions to the other athletes. These children were in the school before entering school – kindergarten and first cycle.
We have Ukrainians, referred by the municipality’s psychologist and more recently we have received Indians in the training and competition levels.
– 75% of the athletes had never practiced federated sports;
– 40% of athletes are girls
– 100% school success rate
– 100% of the young volunteers who are part of working groups for different activities (training, educational support, rugby holidays, prevention projects) are former athletes or still play as seniors
– 100% educational or professional integration rate (all athletes who have gone through our process work or study)
Innovation projects or projects that change a reality must maintain their essence in the response, and must be open and localized in the community, even if it is for a specific or vulnerable audience. Thanks to our dedication we have learned that these children and young people, by participating in activities and training, make new friends from different social, economic and ethnic backgrounds. Encouraging young people to take on leadership roles, involving their families and communities in project activities is a key factor in the continuity of the project and in responding to the identified problem.
Escolinha de Rugby da Trofa
Daniela Vieira
escolinharugbytrofa@gmail.com
Observatório de Desporto Educação e Comunidades (ODEC)
Teresa Dias
odec@fpce.up.pt