Incubator sport and refugees

There are now nearly 68.5 million displaced people in the world. Of these, 25.4 million are refugees, and more than half of them are under 18 years of age. 

Following the European Union's commitment to support forcibly displaced persons, Member States are still struggling to implement collective solutions. To arrive at strong solutions, it is necessary to have a common understanding of the challenges at stake, which means fostering exchanges between those involved in the care of refugee and asylum-seeking populations. A transversal and collective approach can provide answers to needs that are poorly or not provided for in terms of social cohesion. Faced with this situation, PLAY International sees sport as a support to facilitate the care of these audiences as well as an opportunity to bring together and make the actors concerned work collectively. In 2018, Playlab organised the first edition of its support programme dedicated to the social inclusion of refugees through sport. The objective of this programme, co-financed by the European Commission and the City of Paris, was to support the development of 7 innovative projects from 7 European countries. By strengthening the skills of these project leaders, the aim is to consolidate their actions and impacts in the medium term, to identify approaches with replicability potential and solutions that can benefit all sectors of sport and the social and solidarity economy.