Meet The Shortlist - Best New Project
Selected from over 350 entries reaching 60 different countries, the Beyond Sport Awards, supported by Comic Relief shortlist represents the standout and unique work being done by organisations across the globe, from figure skating in Harlem to get young girls interested in STEM education, capoeira as a way to rehabilitate displaced young people in the Middle East to socially conscious gym classes as a way to support isolated older people in the disadvantaged communities across the UK.
The 36 nominated initiatives will be invited to the Beyond Sport Summit 2015, with their travel and accommodation provided, where the winners will be announced at the prestigious Awards Ceremony on the second day of the event.
Best New Project
Leigh Park Project – Big World Impact – UK
Leigh Park Project uses sports as a tool to engage young people, including those with the most complex and unmet needs. The project is working with a wide range of partners to provide positive outcomes across safer communities, health, education and employment agendas.
The project delivers weekly mainstream and minority sports with developmental pathways, and includes archery and ‘Buzz Activities’ like skateboarding, to engage the harder to reach young people.
These activities allow the project to build trusting relationships with young people, leading to positive pathways and interventions. These include accredited training, coach education, Sports Leadership courses, personal/social development opportunities and awareness workshops tackling some of the most difficult subjects, including domestic violence, drugs, ASB and gangs.
Football for Life: Tacloban - FundLife International – Philippines
Football for Life is a project that uses football to support children from disadvantaged communities to tackle the lack of equitable access to opportunity in the Philippines.
Using Football as a vehicle, the project provides psycho-social support to Haiyan-survivor children, debriefing them through play therapy. In the process, positive core values fundamental to team building, camaraderie and co-operation are fostered in a fun, captivating climate; and normalcy returned.
Hijabs and Hat-Tricks - Sport Against Racism Ireland (SARI) – Ireland
Sport Against Racism Ireland present sporting and cultural events that bring together people from different cultures and backgrounds whilst creating opportunities for young people to participate in social integration projects at home and abroad
Hijabs and Hat-tricks is a bespoke programme designed to ease the path of girls of the Muslim faith into full participation as active citizens in Irish society through the medium of football.
The project creates ways to stop alienation of Muslim children and youth. Football has proved to be a popular way of encouraging young Muslim women to participate in sport - and hence society - and at the same time challenging the twin scourges of sexism and Islamophobia.