PLAY International in Romania and Poland: Fostering Cooperation and Fighting Discrimination through Physical Education Training

Game Changers: Stories from the Sport for Refugees Coalition 
  
Following the Global Refugee Forum 2023, the Sport for Refugees Coalition (SfRC) aims to share the stories of SfRC members who are working with refugees and host communities, through sport.  

In May and June 2024, teams from PLAY's Social Innovation division travelled to Suceava, Romania, and then to Warsaw and Wroclaw, Poland, to conduct training sessions for primary school physical activity teachers and sports coaches. After a diagnostic phase at the end of 2023, the team adapted content around two key themes: fostering cooperation and fighting discrimination, with the goal of promoting the inclusion of Ukrainian refugee children in their host countries 

As a first step, PLAY teams visited their Romanian partner, Asociaţia Judeţeană Sportul pentru Toţi” Suceava (AJSPT), to deliver the first "Together Through Sport" training. In total, the programme trained 14 education professionals in Suceava, including seven sports coaches and seven physical education teachers. 

Two further training sessions took place in June in Warsaw and Wroclaw, with the project’s second partner, V4Sport Foundation. These sessions brought together 12 sports coaches and 15 physical education teachers. The two-day training sessions enabled participants to deepen their understanding of PLAY methodologies. 

 The training discussed several teaching methods and participants were introduced to five cooperative games adapted to the project's objectives. Through real-life situations, the trainees immersed themselves in PLAY's pedagogy and learned how to build and run sessions. To complement these initial tools, PLAY shared its pedagogical tool, Playdagogie. Playdagogie aims to raise children's awareness of combating discrimination, through a variety of games and role-plays. 

The two days of training were also punctuated by various interactive games, addressing the challenges of refugee experience, exploring solutions, and different approaches to fostering social inclusion. 

Finally, a secondary training objective was to train participants to become trainers themselves, and various tools were provided to enable them to effectively share these teaching methods with their peers in the future.

Before each training session, PLAY administers a quiz to participants, which is then repeated after the session to assess their progress. The quiz results showed that, on average, participants improved their knowledge and skills by 30% on the theme of cooperation, and by 21.2% in using sports games to promote the social inclusion of Ukrainian children. 

Participants also demonstrated a 44.6% improvement in their understanding of combating discrimination, and a 31.6% increase in their on their knowledge and skills on using sports games to promote the social inclusion of Ukrainian children and combat discrimination. Additionally, they reported feeling more confident in delivering training on these topics themselves. 

With the successful completion of the first Together Through Sport training courses, the project is now entering its deployment phase. The newly trained trainers will be responsible for training other teachers and sports coaches, further expanding the project’s impact. They will also set up sports activities with children, to promote the inclusion of Ukrainian refugee children in schools and sports clubs. 

PLAY International made their commitment to the Multistakeholder Pledge on Sport for Inclusion and Protection to facilitate access to sport and educational content for displaced children and young through training coaches and educators to better serve these populations. To learn more about the Multistakeholder Sport Pledge, please visit here.

To learn more about how sport can contribute to the protection and inclusion of refugees and find ways to get involved in the Sport for Refugees Coalition, visit our webpage or get in touch at [email protected].

Photo Credit: PLAY International