CSP: Sport Birmingham
Europod Exchange 2016
Sport Birmingham co-ordinated for a group of young people from the city to become involved in a tri-national sports exchange programme with young people from two of Birmingham’s twinned cities – Lyon and Frankfurt. The exchange took place in Lyon, France for a week in July 2016, involving a mixture of sports coaching sessions and competitions along with cultural and linguistic activities. Sport Birmingham involved two sports clubs from the most disadvantaged areas of the city – Bidgley Badminton Club from Aston and Continental Star FC from Perry Barr, to give the opportunity to young people within the clubs to be part of the exchange programme.
Sport Birmingham, in partnership with Birmingham City Council (BCC), applied successfully for Erasmus+ funding from the UK National Agency to support the travel and subsistence costs of participating in the exchange, along with obtaining further funding through the OFAJ/DFJW (French-German Youth Office) as part of joining the partnership between Lyon and Frankfurt. Sport Birmingham has taken a lead role within the city to co-ordinate this project – brokering relationships with BCC European Affairs department, the sports clubs involved and other partners across Europe to ensure the project could be developed and can grow across the next few years.
Getting involved for the first time in the Europod exchange, which is in its 8th year (previously just between Lyon and Frankfurt), gave the opportunity for 19 young people (aged 12-16 years) from the disadvantaged areas of the city to experience life in a different country, with the trip being the first time many had the opportunity to travel to France. The Europod exchange as a whole involves 30 sports clubs from across the three cities, with 400 participants in 2016. The participants from Birmingham had the opportunity to be hosted by French families to get a true experience of life in another European country, took part in training and competitions in their own sport, tried new sports for the first time, and enjoyed some cultural trips around Lyon while mixing with their peers from Lyon and Frankfurt. There was also a communal “Olympiads” day in which the young people worked together to complete many different sport and physical activity challenges, they were then hosted by the Mayor of Lyon for a Town Hall Reception.
The emphasis of the exchange programme is to bring young people together to experience new cultures, learn and develop skills by using sport as the key driver. The exchange gave many of the young people their first experience of a different European culture and it developed them greatly as individuals, with many of the friendships with their peers from France and Germany still continuing. Since returning, a lot of the young people have continued to demonstrate some of the new skills and confidence that they gained by being involved in the exchange.
Plans are already in place for 50 people from Birmingham to travel to Frankfurt in July 2017 for the next Europod exchange, increasing our involvement to 4 different sports clubs (football, badminton, table tennis and judo) and giving many more young people from the city the opportunity to learn new skills and develop themselves through this initiative. We plan to use some of the participants from the first exchange as peer mentors for some of the new participants in this year’s exchange so that they can support them and pass on their experiences to the new participants.
The new partnership established between Sport Birmingham and our partners in Lyon and Frankfurt (Office des Sport de Lyon and Sportjugend Frankfurt) has also allowed us work together and share best practice across a number of different fields including club support and youth engagement, as well as developing the Europod exchange further in the coming years.
Sport Birmingham has also recently received further funding through the Erasmus+ programme to support the next two years of the exchange (2017 and 2018). The aims of the project over the next few years is to grow Birmingham’s involvement further by increasing the number of clubs and participants involved from the city, with the aim of hosting the exchange for the first time in 2019.
Comments from participants:
Yunus -
“It was an amazing trip where we made friends from all three countries and had a great time learning, speaking and playing with different nationalities.”
Olivia –
“The Europod exchange was, for me, an amazing experience. A rare opportunity to connect with new people from different cultures and further develop my sense of independence.”
One parent commented that her son
“had matured and seems more confident” as a result of participating in the exchange.