Recap: Equality in Sport (EQUIP) Conference

Lisbon, Portugal, 12 October 2023

In Lisbon, Portugal, the EQUIP partners welcomed an enthusiastic audience for their last project activity. 

To open the European Sport Platform (ESP) 2023, hosted by the Portuguese Sport Confederation (PSC), ENGSO and its partners organised the Equality in Sport conference. This was the concluding event of the Erasmus+ co-funded project EQUIP. 


EQUIP gathered 10 partner organisations with one goal: to improve equality in sport in Europe through the practical and sustainable implementation of the existing good practices and policies. 

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The Equality in sport conference consisted of 3 parallel sessions which supported the participants to draft solutions, ideas and action plans for equality.

  

Human library: more than 15 “books” (individuals) came to share their experiences and expertise in relation to the EQUIP topics: gender equality, LGBTQI+, disability, socio-economic status and racial/ethnic discrimination. 

 

Walk of privilege: with this role-play, participants experienced various discrimination and were able to reflect on their impacts. 

 

Call to action: time to act! People shared their needs and challenges to improve equality in sports in their reality and created an action plan, using one of the tools created by the EQUIP partners.

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Participants of the conference also tested their knowledge of the past and current policies on equality in sport during the quiz “Equality, Europe, Sport: where are we?” and in the “Hall of the EQUIP Champions” they could exchange with clubs and federations across Europe which have actively implemented an action plan to become more open, accessible and inclusive.

The different parts of the programme were linked and allowed the presentation of the project results:

  • Index of top policies and practices
  • Equality Within Sport’ Workshop – Delivery Guide
  • Equality-Action Plan – Design Guide
  • Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning
  • Series of mini-videos

After 3 years of implementation, the partners also shared some of their key learnings to inspire and guide other organisations: 

  • Get decision-makers on board from the beginning and secure resources to implement your action plan.
  • Start somewhere! It might be more effective to select one or two entree topics on the interest of the clubs and federations than addressing all topics; while still taking intersectionality into account.
  • There is still a long way to go in achieving diversity, equality and inclusion. Goals can be revised and updated: the most important is moving forward. 


Learn more about project EQUIP here: http://engso-education.eu/equip