SCORE is an initiative combining the efforts of 1 sport organization and 2 higher education institutions from Programme countries (Bulgaria, Lithuania and Turkey) and 3 grassroots youth organizations dedicated to achieving social impact through the use of sport in Botswana, Nigeria and Zimbabwe.SCORE’s overall objective is to raise the capacities of youth organizations in Partner Countries to develop and implement social-impact driven sport initiatives through exchange of good practices and development of youth work and non-formal education methods and open access training materials (Open Educational Resources) in the fields of sport event management, social impact and social entrepreneurship and innovation.The project’s specific objectives are to:1. transfer the insights of recent academic research into innovative high quality open educational resources and non-formal education methods in areas pertinent to social-impact driven sports initiatives - sport event management, social impact and social entrepreneurship and innovation;2. promote the exchange of good practices of using sport to achieve social objectives and raise awareness of the growing importance of social entrepreneurship in this area;3. through training and practice-based experiential learning in the framework of mobility to improve the sport management and social innovation skills of Partner Countries’ youth workers and to build their capacity to in turn develop such skills among their youth constituencies in view of promoting youth employability;4. disseminate the SCORE capacity building resources and approaches in the SCORE target regions;5. promote the EU approach to social inclusion, education and training and youth participation.In African countries, an increasing number of sport initiatives fall under the category “Sport for Development”, i.e. “sport plus” initiatives where sport is combined with parallel programmes for social/developmental impact or even “plus sport” initiatives where sport is used mostly to attract young people to social or educational programmes. Oftentimes, however, such initiatives are donor-driven and donor-dependent. This project’s rationale is that youth organizations in the target regions need to develop internal capacities for linking their sport initiatives to their desired social impact. Instead of sticking to the “Sport for Development” label typical for the African context, the SCORE partnership chooses the label “Sport for Social Impact” as a more useful common denominator for EU-Africa youth cooperation. Key project activities include the development of high quality OERs in the interdisciplinary field of “Sport for Social Impact”, a practice-oriented training for youth workers in the framework of mobility activities, demonstration “sport for social impact” events and a series of local multiplication workshops.
The Sport for Community Regeneration and Empowerment: Integrating Sport Event Management into Youth Work for Enduring Social Impact /SCORE/ project was implemented between August 1st, 2016 and July 30th, 2017. The one-year running initiative combined the efforts of 1 sport organization /Football club Inter, Bulgaria/, 2 higher education institutions from Program countries (Marijampolė college, Lithuania and Namık Kemal University, Turkey) and 3 grassroots youth organizations dedicated to achieving social impact through the use of sport in Botswana /Poetavango Spoken Word Poetry/, Nigeria /Search and Groom – Youth for Development Centre/ and Zimbabwe /Young Achievements Sports for Development/. SCORE’s overall objective was to raise the capacities of youth organizations in the partner countries to develop and implement social-impact driven sport initiatives through exchange of good practices, development of youth work and non-formal education methods and open access training materials (Open Educational Resources) in the fields of sport event management, social impact and social entrepreneurship and innovation. SCORE’s mission was accomplished through the implementation of the 9 project activities, including the development of high-quality OERs in the interdisciplinary field of “Sport for Social Impact”, a practice-oriented training for youth workers in the framework of mobility activities, demonstration “Sport for Social Impact” events, as well as a series of local multiplication workshops and dissemination activities. The project involved directly 280 stakeholders - young people, youth leaders and activists, trainers, - while the audience reached indirectly through online-, press- and TV- media coverage accounted for over 200000 people. SCORE managed to transfer the insights of recent academic research into innovative high quality educational resources. Furthermore, the exchange of good practices of using sport to achieve social objectives was promoted and the awareness of the growing importance of social entrepreneurship in the target regions was raised. In that, the EU approach to social inclusion, education and training and youth participation was and has been promoted.