Road to Johannesburg: Federation/Governing Body of the Year

In the build up to the Beyond Sport Summit 2014 in Johannesburg, South Africa we are going to profile the shortlisted projects category by category. In this edition we are focusing on the shortlisted projects for the Federation/Governing Body of the Year award.

This award is for recognised national governing bodies, international federations, rights-holders of a recognised competition/league or foundations affiliated to any of for mentioned organisations. The award for the Federation/Governing Body of the Year celebrates organisations that go beyond addressing increasing participation levels and focus on major issues occurring with the relevant communities. The organisations show an integration of ‘social change and community engagement’ into the organisation’s activities and sport development programme. They show an effective use of organisation’s reach, assets and network as well as a strong inclusive strategy when engaging participants in community programmes – such as gender, race, ethnicity, disability and economic background.

Hockey Association of Malawi (Malawi)

The project aims at reducing the impact of social exclusion towards young people involved in crime, prostitution, and drug and alcohol abuse through hockey in order to facilitate positive social change and transformation hence reintegrate them into community.

Hockey as a sport has for so long been regarded as a minority sport in Malawi. However, the past five years hockey has steadily grown into the sport that many young people want to associate with.

The Hockey Association of Malawi capitalised on the fact that hockey was now getting more popular among many youths from under privileged communities and strategically used it as a tool for mobilising and systematically withdrawing young girls in prostitution and boys who are into drugs and alcohol abuse.

They are using hockey as an advocacy and awareness strategy on social inclusion hence a platform for cultivating behaviour change among young people identified and the targeted communities. Currently, the targeted communities records high levels of unemployment, increased youth prostitution, drug and alcohol abuse and increased levels of crime perpetrated by youths. This situation has led to social exclusion of this distinct youth groups from participating in various community initiatives. Besides the various social issues above, the targeted communities are struggling and living in abject poverty.

Euroleague Properties S.A. - One Team (Pan-Europe)

One Team is Euroleague Basketball’s sport, social development and marketing programme that uses basketball to integrate communities and achieve significant positive social impact.  Far away from what has been happening in the past, the league and its clubs have developed a complete CSR offering which brings together activities from each team in an integrated, impactful way. One Team programmes are run by 20 professional clubs and activity takes place in 11 countries (Germany, Greece, Israel, Italy, Lithuania, Russia, Senegal, Serbia, Spain, Turkey, UK).

One Team is not about numbers, or about getting more people involved in basketball.  It is about the social impact that can be achieved by using basketball as a tool to work together towards a common goal.  The use of a structured programme is so important because we cannot assume that participation in sport has inherent positive social impacts.  Only when the right people, processes, tools and structure are put in place does it become truly powerful as a force for development and social change.  Euroleague supports clubs to understand this and put it into practice, focusing on topics that include (but are not limited to) gender inequality, economic disadvantage, community cohesion, disability inequality and substance abuse. 

International Table Tennis Federation (Switzerland)

The International Table Tennis Federation aims to bring table tennis to everyone around the world, in a long-term sustainable way where the UN Millennium Development Goals are considered a guideline. The ITTF promotes the idea that everyone should have equal opportunities to play, to learn values through sport and have a healthy activity option for the spare time.

The meaning of everyone for the ITTF is not only the masses, the focus is on minority groups like underprivileged children, people with a disability, refugees, displaced, elderly or communities devastated by natural or man-made disasters.

Premiership Rugby (UK)

Each season Premiership Rugby and its clubs invest over £3million in a variety of community programmes, aiming to grow and support grassroots participation and tackle core social issues. In the last year alone, Premiership Rugby clubs delivered 150,000 man-hours of community programming to over 260,000 participants.

Premiership Rugby also provides 600 professional players, each a strong role model within their community, who are involved in supporting the schemes. Premiership Rugby, through its infrastructure, is able to develop national projects, focusing on key issues and has the ability to deliver these locally using 12 powerful club brands.

Member clubs also develop their own initiatives to respond to local needs under the two campaigns: Play and Breakthru, and deliver projects that demonstrate good practice, with evaluated successes being shared by Premiership Rugby and member clubs. Premiership Rugby runs a wide variety of schemes, from introducing disadvantaged youngsters to the sport via tag rugby; developing community cohesion in inner cities; working with those at risk of anti-social behaviour or combining rugby with education on numeracy and healthy eating.