Equip for Equality in Practice

Background Although research and advocacy are strong in prioritising equality in sport in Europe, concrete actions and implementation are lacking. Sport organisations have limited capacity to translate and implement existing resources, tools, best practices, and policies within their operations. Based on research, 5 types of inequalities have been identified as key areas where sport clubs/federations need to act: gender, sexual orientation, socio-economic, ethnic and racial, and disability inequalities. Objectives The Equip for Equality in Practice (EQUIP) Project is coordinated by ENGSO, involves 9 partners from 6 European countries, and aims at improving equality in sport in Europe through the practical and sustainable implementation of the existing good practices and policies. The project supports sport organisations in their processes and practices to become more accessible, inclusive, and equitable to all communities by developing a set of tools, a supportive expert network and a mentoring programme. Implementation After developing an Index of Top Policies and Practices (IO1) and building a network of equality experts, the partners organised ‘Equality Within Sport’ Workshops to train umbrella sport organisations coming from 6 European countries. The key component to the proposed methodology was that these umbrella organisations not only mentored their sport clubs and federations (Champions) but also found ways to bring them together to form local and regional networks of equality. Achievements More than 60 sports clubs/federations from Belgium, Italy, Greece, the Netherlands, Portugal, and Sweden were directly involved in one of the 12 workshops based on the Delivery Guide (IO2). The project team followed 24 of them which have implemented equality action plans to become more inclusive using the Design Guide (IO3). The main learnings and recommendations are gathered in a Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning report (IO4) and published as a series of Case Stories videos (IO5).