Grassroots Sport Diplomacy professional development tools set for October launch

15/08/2019

The coming months will not only see the culmination of the two-year Grassroots Sport Diplomacy project, but the public launch of the concept and its free professional development resources at the MOVE Congress on 16-18 October.

ISCA and our project partners (pictured above working on the development of the tools) are using the results of an extensive stakeholder consultation and 7 pilot actions to develop both the concept and an online learning course to help grassroots sport organisations get started in this field.

“Now is a very exciting time!” ISCA Secretary General Jacob Schouenborg says. “With Grassroots Sport Diplomacy we have a brand new angle to our work in the grassroots sport sector. And this angle will allow us to discover new partners, new opportunities, new activities and new resources.”

While sport diplomacy is currently a hot political topic, the focus tends to be on the role of elite sport or government-run federations in facilitating diplomacy across borders. The project’s pilot actions aim to show how community or grassroots sport organisations and NGOs can realise their own potential as diplomats through bottom-up initiatives.

A special track will also be dedicated to Grassroots Sport Diplomacy at the MOVE Congress in Budapest. Representatives from our pilots will join sport diplomacy experts on the stage to reveal how our sector is changing the game for cross-border relations – and how the participants themselves can become diplomats.

Grassroots Sport Diplomacy is supported by the Erasmus+ Sport programme.