Location and general information
Access to Sport - 
Gender Equality - 
Personal developmentContext
Almost 70% of Montreal’s population are immigrants. Most low-income families live in the same neighbourhoods, where we focus our work on team sports activities in partnership with the local community centres. Our project promotes football not only for exercise but above all as a way to integrate, emphasising social integration for girls.
Rêves Passion Montréal helps community centres in the city to provide mixed football activities based on equality and inclusivity. If girls and women are able to realise their potential through sport, they will be able to bring about positive change in society and thrive both at home and at work.
Sports activities are just as mixed as everyday life. It is therefore essential to bring boys up to value tolerance and respect while helping girls develop sufficient self-confidence to feel at home in mixed activities.
Project content
The Urban Soccer for Dream and Hope project guides the community centres in underprivileged neighbourhoods and provides them with the tools to develop football activities for everyone, but girls in particular.
The aim is to provide an environment in which these girls and boys can thrive. Through football and tools such as the Football3 methodology, the project encourages better interaction between these vulnerable youngsters while teaching them about respect and inclusion. They learn how to come up with rules for the group, helping them to develop their own self-esteem, tolerance and leadership skills.
The project is run by Rêves Passion, a football league for adults that works on the principle that ‘everything starts and ends with football’.
Objectives
- Use sport as a tool for social development and integration by promoting fair and equal participation to fight social and gender-related discrimination.
- Boost girls’ self-esteem and confidence in their own abilities by integrating them into mixed sport.
- Increase positive behaviours and attitudes among young people and improve their teamwork.
Project activities
The project focuses on the following five values:
- Inclusion: our project supports community centres in their weekly mixed football sessions by providing a structure, a coach and a methodology based on fair play; some materials may be supplied
- Courage: the No Girls Offside programme is a series of workshops, generally combined with other activities (Zumba, basketball, singing) to promote leadership, self-confidence and a sense of belonging
- Integrity and creativity: at the end of the project, we hold the Urban Soccer Festival, an annual event for participants, their families and our project partners – a festive opportunity to celebrate everyone’s involvement
- Respect: we train the monitors and young adults in our partner centres in the Football3 methodology and by sharing this knowledge we can guarantee the lifespan of the programme and long-term development of football as a whole
Expected results
- Provide girls-only activities, or activities led by women in a suitable environment, for 50 girls by the end of 2022.
- Help community centres provide mixed football activities for 150 children or more by the end of 2022, with at least 25% of regular female participants.
- Enable over 150 youngsters to experience group dynamics, such as working alone and as a team, respecting the diversity of individuals and their ideas, accepting and providing constructive criticism based on mutual respect, solving conflicts peacefully and following rules.
- Training 25 new coaches in the Football3 methodology, which will have a positive effect on each of their groups.
Partner
