#ACTIVE.U – SPORT AND SOCIAL INCLUSION

Our project named #ACTIVE.U – SPORT AND SOCIAL INCLUSION intended to be a solution for a problem that the European Union faces: social exclusion of young people who are in a transition phase after compulsory schooling. With the options available and without certain knowledge of the most appropriate opportunities for their future, young people with fewer opportunities tend not to be able to set their own course and to embark on deviant paths. These paths translate into the young NEET and the young at risk of and social exclusion, incapacitated for their future. The aim of the project was to empower young people with new skills and learning, showing their opportunities for the future through sport and informal education.As regards the European priorities in the field of sport, the project takes on the same priorities for the promotion of social inclusion and equal opportunities; promotion of education through the development of skills and learning through sport; the promotion of gender equality, physical and mental health and the promotion of European sports values, both for games and support for the mobility of coaches, volunteers, staff, among others. Our objectives, as well as the priorities of the European Union, focus on the social inclusion of young people, making them more empowered, more aware and more proactive through sport and the values associated with sports. To this end, informal education - the basic values of sport - emerges to complement other methods of learning and skills development.The needs that were highlighted in this project are, above all: the need for awareness of the values of sport in the development of skills and learning; the need to provide young people with knowledge of their vocational opportunities after compulsory education; the need to create social inclusion strategies based on sport and the values associated with sport among young people; the need to reduce the number of young NEETs and at risk of and social exclusion; the need to promote interculturality and the European dialogue to foster multiple and transnational strategies for social inclusion; the need to promote young people's proactivity, awareness and participation in sports and social life. These needs, identified with young people, aimed to generate impacts and promote new ways of acting appropriate to the needs and expectations of young people. We believe that with these needs filled, young people are more aware and more proactive in personal and social development, are better equipped with skills and learning based on sports values and are more alert in the right choices for their future.The solutions presented were intended to create inclusive strategies based on sport and the social values associated with sport and to promote new logics of action and intervention among communities. This solution was intended to be efficient and did not end with the conclusion of the project. The aim was and still is to open the door to new collaborations and new social responses so that each community can see our example and ensure a direct intervention with their young people. Only in this way will the results be achieved and generate impacts among the target groups and the community. Thus, after achieving the results and generating impacts, the project manages to transform the social reality of young people and of all the target groups identified. This is the value creation potential of our project, which will be scalable and institutionalised at European level and which has strengthened the eradication of social problems of young people in Europe.