HATTRICK: FOOTBALL-LEARNING-INTEGRATION

It is one of the main concerns within the EU, to improve the integration of people with a migration background in educational systems, the labour market and society at large.
Young male migrants in particular are at risk of becoming early school leavers and/or unemployed. As a result these young people are often at risk of social exclusion.
Playing football in a team offers various opportunities of social learning and developing transversal competences – independent from cultural background. Many young migrants show enthusiasm in (team) sports, with young men especially keen on football. The football pitch, however, is one social location where integration seems to be successful in many cases. The activities of the project “Hattrick: Football-Learning-Integration” build on to this setting.
Hattrick, a Grundtvig project funded by the European Commission for Lifelong Learning with its team consisting of partners from Austria, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Great Britain, France and Bulgaria, follows a strategy to use the potential which young migrant footballers display on the football pitch for (re-)entering education and vocational training and thus improving their social integration. The project started in December 2009 and will be finished in November 2011.
Hattrick develops an innovative training approach by opening an informal pathway to education: Football clubs are explored as possible new places of learning. Young migrants or other young disadvantaged men are engaged in lifelong learning activities by meeting them where they already are with enthusiasm: on the football pitch!

The main target groups of the Hattrick project are:
- Young male migrants / young male adults who are socio-economically disadvantaged with a low level of education or at risk of exclusion
– aged between 15 and 25 years and involved in a football club
- Football coaches working with this target group
The training method in the Hattrick project is based on a two-fold training strategy:
1. Hattrick develops and tests “FootbaLLL-workshops” (Football and LLL = Lifelong Learning) for young migrant football players, where social and intercultural skills are developed. The main objective of these trainings is to systematically expand transversal competences acquired in football – needed in professional life.
2. To enhance the social and intercultural competences of football coaches a training programme called “FootbaLLL Coach” will be developed. It enables football trainers to support their players in the process of integration into Lifelong Learning and at the same time to increase the team performance.
The close cooperation with football clubs throughout the project ensures the practical approach in the project. During the first project period the training material for coaches and players was developed, focusing on football-related activities to attract the target group. The piloting phase started in November 2010. Seven football clubs in seven partner countries will test the training material, accompanied by current Evaluation activities to collect the feedback from coaches, the players and the adult educators involved. The results of the piloting of the programmes for migrant footballers and their coaches will be gathered for the finalisation of the training design and the training materials as well as for a good practice brochure, which will be published by the end of the project.