Organisers: Pare Manel Foundation and Babar Sports Association.
Collaborating organisation: Ramon Molinas Foundation.
Dates of implementation: 01/09/2015 – 30/06/2016.
Babar Sports Association, using futsal to encourage social integration
Babar Sports Association is a sports association linked to the Pare Manel Foundation which forms part of the social life in the Barcelona district of Nou Barris. The project works to encourage social integration of children and young people through playing futsal (indoor football).
The social and educational focus of the association centres around creating a personal and social environment in which children and young people from the areas of Guineueta, Canyelles, Roquetes, Verdum and Trinitat Nova can grow and develop. Through training teams and playing futsal, the project allows young people to foment interpersonal relationships, as well as positive relationships with the coaches and representatives who become educative mentors for the participants.
The Babar Sports Association has 18 teams. Of these, 12 are school teams and the remaining 6 are local teams. The teams are made up of a total of 210 children and young people between 6 and 18 years old. Through sport, the children who take part work on values such as responsibility, respect, friendship and creativity. The project counts on the involvement of 37 people including coaches, representatives, coordinators and collaborators who work together at the La Guineueta Sports Complex, the CEIP Aiguamarina court, the Escola Antaviana court and the court at Escola Turó de Roquetes.
The Ramon Molinas Foundation has renewed its collaboration for the third year running with Babar Sports Association. The RMF will assume a fourth of the total budget of maintaining the association’s staff, as well as the cost of an excursion to the mountains which the teams in the higher leagues will go on next summer.
Futsal as a tool for personal development
The members of the Babar Sports Association are children and young people from the Nou Barris area suffering from any kind of disability or special needs. The organisation fully takes into account the diversity of the problems of the participants, who are able to achieve personal development thanks to playing futsal, which brings a range of physical and psychological benefits. The project also organises social events which encourage interpersonal relationships.
In addition, practising sport attached to a local sports club foments other significant values in the children, who come from areas suffering from social problems. Firstly, it helps the children and young people to discover a more selfless attitude, as a result of understanding that their self-determination depends on others. Secondly, playing futsal encourages the team to work together, as part of a group which requires high levels of mutual understanding. Finally, they become conscious of the quality of their actions. They get used to thinking responsibly and maturely about what to do, why, and the consequences of attempting to do things well.
It is also worth highlighting that the Babar Sports Association promotes equality for everyone, regardless of their sex. In the lower leagues, the teams of children are mixed. Moreover, the association encourages family participation in the social life of the club in order to create a network of relationships between the families, the players and the project staff.
The Pare Manel Foundation, an organisation committed to social vulnerability
Created in the year 2004, the Pare Manel Foundation is a non-profit organisation rooted in the district Nou Barris in Barcelona which develops and spearheads social action and educational projects. The organisation works particularly with people from vulnerable socio-economic backgrounds.
The Babar Sports Association works within the socio-educational sports programmes run by the Pare Manel Foundation. Apart from the purely sport orientated activities of the organisation’s teams, the programme also includes a series of activities such as: sessions every term on the use of technology, training and technical talks for the coaches, as well as sports camps and trips to the countryside.
Outside of this area of work, the Pare Manel Foundation also offers a comprehensive educative action programme to children and teenagers, a school support programme, a social leisure programme, a labour integration programme and an assistance programme for those in prison.
The Ramon Molinas Foundation, as part of the social and leisure activities programme, collaborated with the Pare Manel Foundation by providing a comprehensive grant covering the cost of the Intercultural Community Centre Dining Room in 2013.
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