Led by the Barça Foundation, SPRING’s main objective is increasing the level of social integration of young refugees in Europe through a new gender-based perspective’ sports intervention. Building upon an accurate desk research & needs assessment, SPRING will design & test this new intervention in Catalonia, Denmark, Germany & Greece, working for the integration & inclusion of at least 300 young refugees, which are the main beneficiaries. This pilot, structured in 2 weekly sessions during a 9 months period, will be delivered by a pool of 40 coaches, educators & volunteers, duly trained by BF staff on the SPRING approach. At the same time, 200 residents from the target countries will be involved through the SPRING local integration events to build social ties with the refugees. Deeply inspired by BF’s successful FutbolNet (a non-formal educational methodology aimed at using sport related activities as tools for reflection & agents of change in the lives of children & youth in vulnerable contexts), SPRING proposes an intervention using sports, physical activity & play as the vehicles to foster refugees’ integration & social inclusion in Europe while mainstreaming gender equality in sports programming. Although sport is recognised as having unique role in promoting equality (challenging norms, skill development, normalisation, socialisation) if sport activities are not delivered in a way that intentionally addresses inequalities, sport-based programmes risk perpetuating the inequalities that still exist. SPRING will digitally scale-up the new approach by delivering a MOOC and reaching out to 2,000 coaches & educators from all over Europe. In parallel, SPRING will draft a sustainability plan to secure further resources and ensure the long-term continuity of the intervention. All the content delivered by SPRING will be publicly available for dissemination & replicability by other EU stakeholders.
Projects
The project OPPORTUNITY is an initiative of nine organizations representing different sectors (sport, culture and education) aimed at fostering social inclusion of people with intellectual disabilities and gender equality within physical activity via TSG scenarios. Within the project implementation, Project Partners plan to develop a Practical Interventional Methodology including six scenarios of applying TSG as a tool of fostering social inclusion of people with intellectual disabilities and gender equality within formal and nonformal education environments. The Methodology will be disseminated via developed Massive Open Online Course for sport coaches and educators and tested within implementation of TSG Pilot Inclusive actions in seven countries. Social impact of the project will be evaluated and validated by academic project partners and supported by developed digital tool (Mobile App) for collecting evidence and its preliminary analysis. Developed and validated Methodology can be used further by any sport or educational organization interested in applying TSG as a tool for fostering social inclusion and gender equality.
Tecniospring INDUSTRY, ACCIÓ's international talent programme, boosts technology transfer processes by offering R&D companies and centres 2-year employment contracts to host a researcher.
The high rate of youth unemployment, in particular NEETs and women, in the Mediterranean basin has economic and social consequences that are not specific to one country, but rather impact all Mediterranean countries. These groups share common challenges like lack of education, unequal access to education and employment, mismatch of their skills with the needs of the labour market, and they suffer a difficult transition from school to work. SIRCLES partners want to explore new employment opportunities by applying the circular economy model applied to the biowaste sector. The project will mainly focus on developing new capacities oriented to business development and separation, collection, composting and agriculture processes. The training will be tested through 7 pilot projects that address the hotel, food retail and household sectors, adjusted to the diverse local contexts of each territory involved in the project. Consequently, SIRCLES will contribute to the creation of green jobs by involving the most vulnerable sectors of the population and supporting environmental sustainability.
The project “SmatchS: Sports organizations Matching Social inclusion issues” (SmatchS) is an initiative of six organizations from sport, local authorities, social and academic areas, willing to contribute with their joint efforts to encouraging social inclusion and equal opportunities in sport. The area of the intervention of the project consortium is social inclusion of children in migration through providing them with facilitated access to sport activities. The key idea of the project is to create synergy between sport and social organizations as well as local authorities from Spain, France, Portugal, Cyprus and Greece in order to develop and apply to the local contexts a methodology for social inclusion of children with migratory background. The methodology will be built, taking into account the complexity of social inclusion issues of migrant children, their diverse migratory background, structural characteristics of every local context and different types of sport for implementing activities. Contextualisation of the methodology within two streams of pilot activities for 420 migrant children will allow to propose “multiple solutions approach” towards the problem of social inclusion of child migrants instead of “one solution for all”, that facilitates its multiplication and application to other local contexts outside the project consortium.
European cities are facing multiple challenges when it comes to managing the impacts and urban transformation processes deriving from tourism. These include increased sanitary precautions, strain on limited urban resources like water, energy and space, waste management, gentrification, and the cohabitation between residents and visitors as well as precarious hospitality working conditions.
In the light of this development, TOURBAN project concentrates its efforts to tackle the adaptation of European tourism companies towards more sustainable, low-carbon, circular and resource-efficient business models. As essential players in this transition, SMEs need to be provided with the necessary skills, capacity and financial resources, if they are to become innovation and sustainability catalysts. Furthermore, the project supports SMEs in uptaking international best practices and developing innovative solutions that render them both more sustainable and competitive through new and increased revenue streams, reduced costs and decreased resource consumption as well as a better visibility and positioning. Ultimately, TOURBAN aims to foster cross-sector collaboration to close the loop in circular economy processes and spearhead a transnational movement towards tourism sustainability in urban areas across Europe.
The project “InAbled Cities: Developing Inclusive urban environments for physical activity of people with disAbilities and senior citizens” is an intersectoral partnership of six organizations from five EU countries, joining efforts to increase the participation of people with disabilities, especially the elder, in health-enhancing physical activities (HEPA) within urban areas. The main idea of the project is to rethink existing urban environments and infrastructures and encourage people with physical disabilities (with special focus on elderly people) to practice physical activity there with support of physiotherapists and health professionals, supported by Practical Methodology and mobile App that will be developed within the project activities. One of the project objective is to implement Citizen Engagement Strategy, that will allow to involve citizens in rethinking of urban environments, give them a voice and jointly create comfortable, accessible and inclusive urban areas.
The development of a green economy in the Mediterranean area to combat environmental degradation represents a great opportunity for jobs creation, particularly for young graduates and women who are three times less likely to be employed than men. Strengthening eco-innovative entrepreneurship is a recognised solution even though green ventures face a complex set of challenges including limited access to funding, underdeveloped markets and fragmented support from sector stakeholders. GIMED aims at boosting the development of eco-innovative ventures in order to create employment and drive the green and circular economy in the Mediterranean. The project will implement a United Nations-backed ‘Green Entrepreneurship Standard’ that will standardise the supportive inputs needed to generate successful ventures and will give those ventures a mark of quality to better access finance and markets. On the ground, the project will train and coach eco-innovators and encourage financiers to invest in the Mediterranean eco-innovation sector.
As cities continue to grow, so is the number of challenges they are facing. Environmental, economic or social emerging issues call for new and unproven urban solutions. The increasing need for urban innovation will result in the development of a significant number of smart cities initiatives, creating new business opportunities for Mediterranean SMEs. If we want our cities to be efficiently managed and more livable for communities, public authorities and SMEs have to work together to come up with the best technological solutions. SME4SMARTCITIES will make this collaboration possible by reinforcing the capacities of Mediterranean cities and SMEs. On the one the hand, the project will help cities to be the front-runners of innovation, in particular through the use of Public Procurement of Innovative solutions. On the other hand, the project will support Mediterranean SMEs in order to guarantee that their products and services meet the expectations and needs of smart cities.
The Mediterranean region is one of the world’s leading tourist destinations. Facing growing competition and deterioration of the political and security situation, the destination has demonstrated symptoms of a slowdown, which makes the recovery of the sector an economic priority. This downturn may also present an opportunity to transform the tourism model into a sustainable and competitive one, addressing current sectorial challenges as the predominance of mass seaside tourism, dependent on the European market and territorial imbalances. MEDUSA will tackle these joint challenges via targeted and inter-related capacity building and cross-border interventions to develop and promote adventure tourism in the region, a niche which grew by 195% between 2010 and 2014. By designing and testing routes and itineraries that offer improved adventure tourism products, MEDUSA will contribute to job creation and income for local communities in the medium and long term. Moreover, the project has the potential to reveal lesser-known destinations and attract tourists throughout the year.