Migration has become a highly sensitive topic across the European continent, regardless of cause. While migration has been brought under the spotlight in recent years, the social inclusion of refugees, migrants and asylum-seekers has unfortunately not attracted as much public interest.

Founded on the belief that sport is a universal language that can be harnessed to enable social progress, FIRE strives to foster local intercultural openness through football. The project intends to provide grassroots football organisations with the tools and insight that will enable them to implement their very own social inclusion initiatives and programmes aimed at displaced newcomers. Local initiatives, multiplied across the continent, are key to answering a European-wide phenomenon. And partnerships and alliances are essential for doing so, just as they are the foundation of the FIRE consortium.

FIRE project (Football Including REfugees) aims to promote football as a means of inclusion, participation, socialization and access to sport for asylum-seekers, refugees and migrants at a local level.

Founded on a strong consortium of diverse project partners, FIRE+ will strive to further recognize the needs, and differing realities, among the target group of refugees, migrants and asylum-seekers. It will do so by reinforcing the multimedia online courses known as MOOC and developed in the framework of the FIRE project. The MOOC, which aims to understand all the steps involved in setting up a project to include refugees through football, will be updated and completed with two new modules focusing on Women and Girls and on Children and Unaccompanied Minors to provide users with a more holistic approach to social inclusion through football.