Sport Unites Youth Exchange Korenica, Croatia, September 2-9
Sport
Unites
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Partners
This publication reflects the views only of the author, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein.
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Project in a nutshell Project name: Sport Unites: Developing Physical and Emotional Well-Being of LGBTI People through Sport and Recreation Activities Partner countries: Croatia, Serbia, Montenegro and Greece No of participants: 40 Start date: 2 May 2017 Duration: 6 months Venue: Korenica, Croatia Short description: At the Rio Olympics only 54 athletes were openly LGBTI but they won 25 medals, including 10 gold medals. Some of them even became national heroes, like Brazilian judoka Rafaela Silva, which won Brazil's first Olympic gold medal in Rio. Therefore, even though sport is one of spheres were even in the most progressive countries openly LGBTI athletes are rare, sport can be a tool for creating positive attitudes towards LGBTI people and can help LGBTI community strengthen itself. This will be the goal of this youth exchange; to understand how athletes can serve as positive role models for young people, how some openly LGBTI athletes have made tremendous contribution to LGBTI movement (Martina Navratilova is one of the best and earliest examples), how sport and recreation activities can help young people meet new friends and develop support network. Also, this youth exchange will explore problems within the LGBTI community, above all the discrimination and marginalization of trans and intersex people and how sport activities can be used for their integration into the LGBTI community.
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Objectives 1. create new competences and increasing the participants' involvement as active citizens in society The participants have learned more about the LGBTI movement in sports. By taking inspiration from the achievement of LGBTI leaders in sport and in general, they have created their own ideas about how to strengthen and improve their local LGBTI communities. Special attention was given to projects that make the LGBTI community more inclusive, especially towards trans- and intersex people. These ideas will then be turned into reality by the participants, thus making them more active members of the society. They have also debated and came up with ways of including more straight people in these activities. 2. raise participants' awareness and understanding of other cultures and countries This youth exchange has relied heavily on the knowledge and experience of the participants in their local LGBTI communities in implementing the project. Therefore, this youth exchange provided the participants with the opportunity to learn about the state of LGBTI rights in other partner countries. It is important to note that the partner countries include 2 EU members and 2 aspiring members. Thus, when comparing the problems of their local LGBTI communities, young people had discussed how the EU membership has influenced the values and attitudes of the society and its political elites towards LGBTI community. 3. create a more vibrant, stronger and more inclusive LGBTI community Young LGBTI people often feel isolated and vulnerable in the partner countries due to high levels of discrimination. After analysing the current state of LGBTI communities in partner countries, the participants had debated and came up with solutions on how to organize LGBTI sport activities and other support networks for LGBTI people to hang out and meet new people. Furthermore, the participants had focused on making LGBTI community more inclusive towards trans and intersex people and how to build bridges with straight people by including them in LGBTI activities. In this way, we avoid segregation. 4. developing healthy life-style for the participants Modern world brings a lot of challenges for the young people - very busy schedule, heavy workload and not a lot of free time. This can lead to a lot of stress and ultimately to the deterioration of health. The project, the project has created positive attitudes towards physical exercise by including a lot of outdoor activities, while at the same time making plans to organize additional outdoor activities in which they will participate in their local LGBTI communities when the youth exchange is over. Also, lunch and dinner were prepared in accordance the rules of healthy diet - more different vegetables and with less meat than the standard Balkan cuisine.
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The objectives were achieved by implementing the following activities:
Energizers Form the line The participants first form one line and then they have to imagine one person in the group. When everyone has done this, then they are instructed to form a line where everyone has to stand to the right of the person they had imagined. They do not have to stand immediately next to the person they imagined, it is sufficient that they are to the right of that person. Participants should always be on the lookout because a very slight change in the line order can cause many people to have to move to other places in order to be to the right of the person they imagined.
Run around 3 times The participants first form one line and they have to imagine one person in the group. Then, they are instructed to make three circles around the person they had imagined. As soon as they are finished they have to sit down. The game is challenging because other people are moving while you are trying to make a circle around them.
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Never have I ever‌ Participants sit on chairs in a circle. There are no empty chairs, in fact, there is one chair less than the number of participants. The person in the middle is explaining the rules. He/she starts with never have I ever‌ e.g. visited France. So everybody in the group that has been in France must get up and try to find a free chair to sit. The person who cannot find a free chair starts the game again by saying never have I ever‌
Fruit salad The rules are very similar to Never have I ever game. Participants sit on chairs in a circle. There are no empty chairs, in fact, there is one chair less than the number of participants. Participants are divided into apples, oranges and bananas. The person standing in the middle says I want to eat banana and then all of the bananas must stand and find a new chair to sit. The person without the chair continues the game. They can choose any selection of fruit to eat - e.g. banana and apple, only oranges, and a fruit salad, in which case everyone must get up and find a new chair to sit.
Body bridge Participants sit on chairs in the circle. There has to be equal number of chairs and participants. They have to make enough space between chairs. Participants turn to their right, put their legs between two chairs and lower their heads onto the lap of the person behind them. Then the facilitators start pulling the chairs underneath the participants so they have to keep the bridge stable by relying on the muscles in their legs and core. The goal is to remove all of the chairs and that the bridge is not broken, i.e. that all of the participants are in the same position without their chairs as they were when they were sitting on chairs.
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Toster Participants form a circle, the facilitator is in the middle and gives instructions. The facilitator points to one person and says washing machine, toaster or blender. For toaster the person in the middle jumps up and down (representing the finished toast), the two neighbours form a circle with their arms around him, representing the toaster. For the washing machine, similar to the toaster, but the person in the middle is spinning around (like being washed in a washing machine. As for the blender, the neighbours tip with their fingers on the head of the person in the middle, who is spinning around like the content of a blender. If someone makes a mistake they are out of the game. The game finishes when there is a very small number of participants or when the team feels energized.
Samurai The group is in the circle and one player begin with the play. There are three different words in connection with three different movements. First player pronounce HU and with joined palms waves from the top of the head down – as he have a sword in his hands, like he wants someone to cut in half. A person who is halved pronounced HA and raise his palms from down to up over the head. Two persons beside pronounced HO and then sweep also with connected hands to the stomach of the “HA” person, also like they cut him with the sword. Afterwards that “HA” person continues to play with pronouncing HU, and “cutting” somebody else in the circle.
Make the line longer Participants are divided into 3-4 groups with the same number of people. The goal is to make the longest line but all of the group members must maintain physical contact with each other. They can, however, make the line longer by connecting themselves through shirts, belts and any other object they have on themselves.
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Turn the blanket Participants are divided into groups and each group gets a blanket. Everybody has to stand on the blanket and the goal is to try to turn the blanket around to the other side but everyone has to keep standing on the blanket. The trick is that the groups cannot be too big or the task will be too difficult/impossible and that the groups are not too small or the task will be too easy
Blind, mute and deaf Participants are divided into groups of three - one person is blind, the other is mute and the third one also cannot see. The blind person has to follow instructions by the two other teammates. The mute person can see the blind person and has to give directions, but the mute person cannot speak so he/she/they have to rely on giving signals by hand to the third person. The third person can see the mute person but he/she/they cannot see the blind person so it has to shout instructions to the blind person about where to go, based on the instructions by the mute person, without knowing the consequences of these instruction for the safety of the blind person. The goal was for the bling person to avoid obstacles and objects while moving around, following the instructions of his/her/its teammates. This exercise is good for building trust and for pointing out how difficult it is to work in an atmosphere were so many people are shouting at the same time.
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Workshops LGBTI athletes - success and failure stories Athletes serve as role models for young people, which is why their behaviour and the consequences they suffered after coming out are so important for LGBTI youth. Participants are divided into groups and they have to start by brainstorming a list of LGBTI athletes they know. They share their stories with other group members if someone has not heard about this athlete. After they had completed the list, they were given a task to name sports they were playing, whether their coming out was a success (did his/her career suffer because of coming out) and if they served as role models for LGBTI youth. Then, each group has presented its list (only the athletes not previously explained by other groups). After that we had a discussion where we tried to draw comparison between being LGBTI athlete in different sports and the differences between sports where lesbians, compared to gays, are most common. What was noticeable is the absence of success LGBTI coming outs in football, the worlds most popular sport. Also, our list came across many gay athletes in artistic sports like diving, gymnastics, figure skating, while lesbians were more numerous in strength based sports like football or tennis. Equally interesting, most openly gay athletes competed in individual sports, which might point out to homophobic attitudes among other athletes preventing gay athletes in team sports from coming out. Famous lesbian athletes were equally represented in team sports like football or handball and in individual sports like tennis and martial arts.
Heterosexual athletes as positive role models Heterosexual athletes generally have much larger fan base than LGBTI athletes and their behaviour reflects on the values, attitudes and patterns of behaviour of the youth even more. Participants were again divided into groups and they were brainstorming heterosexual athletes that have contributed to the positive affirmation of LGBTI people and of sexual (male-female) equality. Each group had to choose three athletes and share their stories with other groups. The participants have selected many interesting case studies, including Andy Murray, who continuously has to correct journalists that always disregard female tennis players when quoting statistics. Also notable example was Ben Foster, who has set up an organisation to fight for inclusion in sports and everyday life. Ben Foster is also a son of a gay man who was murdered in front of a gay bar. Many other athletes have come out openly in support of same-sex marriage and have voiced their support for having LGBTI athletes in their team, including LeBron James, one of the biggest sport stars.
Trans* issues in sports: right to participate We had a discussion about basic concepts that underline the problems associated with participation of transgender and intersex people in sports:
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- Freedom to participate - Fairness in competition (level playing field) - Security These three priorities might come into conflict, e.g. free access to transgender and intersex women with much higher levels of muscle mass, which is a result of higher levels of testosterone, might give them an unfair advantage over the rest of female participants, and even put other participants’ health at risk in some sports like boxing. During the debate we have outlined world sport governing bodies guidelines for participation of intersex and transgender women in female categories (participation of intersex and transgender men in male categories is not an issue because it is assumed that they will not have unfair advantage due to their lower testosterone levels). Equally, we debated if the rules are fair towards both trans- and intersex women and towards non-trans and intersex women. Much of the discussion focused on the women’s 800 meter running discipline, where three most dominant runners, also the medal winners at the Rio Olympics are intersex women (Caster Semenya, Francine Nyonsaba and Margaret Wambui). The case of Caster Semenya is especially notorious as her “sex trial”, which was set up to determine if she is a woman, was done very publicly. Intersex women are a small minority so is it a coincidence that they can dominate one sport discipline, or is it that they dominate it because having male organs which give them higher levels of testosterone also give them unfair advantage. The sport governing bodies, including athletics, are performing new studies to determine if transgender and intersex women have unfair advantage and what are the possible solutions to this potential problem. However, during the discussion we have raised a possibility that testosterone level tests, on which the sport governing bodies rely nowadays to determine if an intersex and
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transgender athletes has unfair advantage, might not be appropriate for every sport, I.e. that these rates might be different for football, compared to athletics.
Gender stereotypes in sports The session was again organised as a discussion in which participants were asked to list global sport superstars, first female superstars and then male superstars. What was striking was how much difficulty they had in finding female athlete superstars like Serena and Venus Williams or Maria Sharapova. On the other hand, they had no problems listing global male sports superstars Ronaldo, Messi, Hamilton, Bolt… So the question was obvious - why are men more likely to become global superstars? We have examined a number of options - media discrimination - media is dominated by men and many of them do not have high opinion about female sports, which is why they devote most of media attention to male sports competitions and athletes - discrimination during upbringing - many parents discourage their daughters from competing in sports because they fear injuries, while they have no such reservations for their sons - discrimination by the fans - most of sport fans are men and for that reason they might prefer male athletes of female athletes. At the same time, it is often the case that female athletes that become global superstars do that because of their looks and not so much because of their sport achievements, case in point being Anna Kournikova - gender biases in the society - many people still believe that women do not work as hard as men and for that reason their matches are less interesting and their achievements less worthy because of less competition.
Debate: Is professional sports healthy for young people (under age 20) There were two teams and each debate team had three members. One team was affirmation and the other negation. The thesis was: professional sport is healthy for young people. The debate was performed in three rounds. In the first round each team had to make their case they had two minutes to do that. After than they had two rounds to counter arguments made by the other side, for each round they had 1 minute. The debate was presided by the moderator, who was also keeping track of time. During the debate, the “audience” was moving from left to right based on the quality of the arguments presented by the debating teams. Those participants that believed the thesis is correct were sitting on the right end, while those that believed the thesis is not correct were sitting to the right end. If the arguments they search changed their minds, they would move and sit at the other end of the “auditorium”.
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World Cafe Since for most of the participants this was the first experience with ERASMUS+ or any LGBTI project, we had organised a world cafe with 5 stations: 1. youth exchanges 2. training courses 3. European Volunteering Service 4. LGBTI pride 5. LGBTI sport tournaments Participants were divided into 5 groups and they had 10 minutes at each station to get as much information about possibilities for young people through ERASMUS+ and LGBTI projects.
Strengthening LGBTI community LGBTI communities in partner countries are mostly down to a few LGBTI bars and an active dating/hook up applications. Therefore, we have spent a lot of time trying to find out the root causes of the problems of LGBTI communities and how we can resolve some of the problems. Participants were working in groups focusing on the following aspects:
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gay-gay, lesbian-lesbian, trans-trans‌ relations gay-lesbian, lesbian-trans, trans-gay‌ relations Queer-straight relations LGBTI and labour market LGBTI and institutions Visibility and integration of LGBTI minorities (bisexuals, transgender and intersex people) Other
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What was striking is that in every partner country there is a clear segregation within LGBTI community, with gays mainly sticking among themselves and lesbians doing the same. However, even more problematic is the level of ignorance and discrimination in LGBTI community towards transgender and intersex people. EU members were ahead of Serbia and Montenegro when it comes to employment opportunities and protection from the state institutions, even though much improvement needs to be made in every partner country. One of the solution to the problems of the LGBTI communities is developing queer-straight alliance. Without changing public opinion, and the heterosexuals are the overwhelming majority, it is illusionary that the institutions will protect rights of sexual and gender minorities, which will exacerbate segregation between LGBTI community and mainstream society.
Theatre workshop Since the weather was not very kind to us - heavy rain does not mix well with outdoor activities, we have used theatre in order to get some movement among participants. The theatre workshops was divided into two parts: 1. Participants were divided into two groups. Then within each group they had to form pairs of two - one person was a sculptor and the other was the sculpture. Their task was to create a sculpture which represents a sport without using words. The other group had to guess which sport it was. The two groups were competing against each other and the winner was the first group to guess all of the sculptures. 2. Participants were divided into four groups and each group randomly drew a piece of paper with the term they had to explain through a silent performance. Every group had to keep it a secret which is the term they had to explain through the performance. After each performance other groups had to guess the term they had been presented with. The rules were that the winner is the group which had the most correct guesses by other groups. In reality, every group was given the same term - identity - and the main point is for participants to see different definitions and views of identity through four different performances. Identity was one of the key concepts we were working on in this youth exchange but when the participants were given the task to present the concept of identity without using words, every group struggled in the beginning. Also, some groups have taken completely different approach to explaining identity, which showed that even though identity is very important to us - it is a very complex phenomenon and very difficult to explain.
Outdoor activities Workout session As soon as the rain stopped and the roads were almost dry, we organised an outdoor workout session. The participants were divided into 4 groups and each group had to finish the following workout programme: - 50 burpees - 100 jumps - 100 push ups - 200 situps
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- 500 squats - 3 runs around the block The rules were the following: - Each group had to finish all of the assignments but they could distribute assignments between them - You were allowed to mix workouts, e.g. start with 10 burpees and then move to 20 push ups - Only one person from the group can work out. While one person is working out, the rest of the team is resting The winner is the first team to finish the assignments. We also had judges who were taking notes about how many exercises each team had performed - the judges were the participants who had injuries or were in other ways prevented from participating in the activity.
Hiking to Pljesevica mountain This was a long, 10 hour hike to the top an back. The participants were in charge of preparing their food for the trip and bringing water with them. During the hike we made a lot of breaks so that even those in bad shape could finish the hike and during these breaks we discussed how these kinds of activities (full-day outdoor activities) effect young people. Out of this experience a new project idea was born and it revolves around hiking and developing self-esteem and confidence in one’s own abilities.
Visit to Plitvice Lakes National Park We did 2 workshops on the lawns of the Plitvice Lakes National Park and after that we had the rest of the day (free afternoon) to explore the park. This was also a demanding physical exercise since our walking tour lasted around 6 hours.
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Final impressions Youth exchanges are an excellent way of learning new things while having fun. However, probably the most long-lasting impact of this youth exchange was new friends we have created. Some of us even fell in love during this project. For many of us, this was the first project through ERASMUS+ and now we cannot wait to join new projects. There are not many LGBTI projects in our countries and we were surprised to find out the opportunities that not only ERASMUS+, but also European Youth Foundation, offer to LGBTI youth. We are now fare more keen and excited about using these opportunities for developing and implementing new projects.
Sport Unites Team
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