The overall goal of this project is to promote gender equality in informal street sports by making youth workers, youth, and organizations more aware of gender inequality in informal street sports, more knowledgeable about the causes and better equipped to deal with the related challenges. By promoting equality at a young age, where youth of all genders can play side by side, the project hopes to affect societal change at a grassroots level by normalizing gender rights. The project aims to this by achieving the following objectives: 1. Facilitate cooperation and knowledge exchange between partners throughout the project to promote gender equality and the bridge cultural differences that may be identified. 2. Identify the specific causes of gender difference in informal street sports. 3. Identify solutions to the causes of gender difference in informal street sports and test these solutions for youth workers. 4. Encourage inclusivity in informal street sports by developing an open source online toolbox for youth workers to learn how to promote gender equality in street sports. 5. Establish cooperation and promote equality in sport from the community level to develop equal opportunities for all genders. 6. Impact the widest audience possible in the EU with outcomes of the project and make results sustainable.
Gender inequality is present in a variety of sports. This inequality is even more present in informal street sports, like skateboarding, basketball and soccer. For formal and institutional sport facilities (schools, clubs, etc.) many programs are in place to stimulate gender equality. However, for informal sport activities, which have the highest participation in underprivileged neighborhoods, there is not as much support available. Girls in underprivileged neighborhoods are the group of society which participates in sports the least, thus there is a very strong need to improve equality and the opportunities to participate in sport in these areas. This need is substantiated by the experiences of youth and youth workers from the network of the consortium.