The IncluPAS-project is a social innovation project aiming at developing, implementing and testing a digital application to create social inclusion through sport and Physical Activity (PA)-initiatives in disadvantaged communities for 14 to 18- year old adolescents.

The project will focus on 14-18-year-old adolescents, because this group is especially hard to reach for grassroot sport organisations. Community champions will play a key role in these initiatives and in the project as their efforts spark action and create social change in the community. The application will allow these community champions to easily upload, organise and display their initiatives. It will furthermore visualise their effects and value their efforts, so they are motivated in a sustainable way to connect their peers through physical activity, and thereby promote the much-needed social inclusion in less advantaged communities.

In order to achieve the project’s objectives, a multidisciplinary and multicultural consortium was established, consisting of seven partners from five different countries.
Three of the partners are cities (Gent, Vilnius, Thessaloniki) that are united by their needs and their motivation to promote the integration of lower social classes and ethnical cultural minorities in the society. All cities involved have positive experiences in using sport and physical activity as a means to create intercultural connections.

These cities are supported by two research partners (LUNEX University, HOWEST), one topic partner in social inclusion and dissemination (Vienna institute of International democracy and cooperation (VIDC)), and one marketing and innovation partner (MySueno).

In addition to this consortium, an app-developer will be subcontracted to customize the IncluPAS-Application to the needs of the target group.

One disadvantaged community (geographical region of +- 5000 people) will be selected per city, with a high proportion of ethnic cultural minorities. In each community, a fivefold capacity building approach will be used, consisting of five core components that will lead to the intellectual outputs:

1. Community Scan: the community will be scanned for movement and sport opportunities and for organisations in the community working with sport and physical activity (further described as stakeholder organisations) to create social inclusion for the target group of 14-18-year adolescents.
2. Cross-sector collaborations: three co-creation sessions with the mapped stakeholder organisations will be held to connect the available knowledge, resources between sport and non-sport organisations and to link these with the other aspects of the IncluPAS-project
3. Community Champions: 15 community champions will be identified through the network of the mapped organisations and through other communication channels. A co-creation workshop will be set up to engage the champions to use their talents, and thereby contributing to sport and social inclusion in the community using the IncluPAS-app.
4. IncluPAS-application: The platform will allow community champions to easily upload, organise and display their initiative for their peers. It will allow to value the efforts of the community champions, facilitate communications between stakeholder organisations and measure outcomes related to sport participation, PA and social inclusion.
5. Process-Evaluation (VIDC): the projects will be monitored and evaluated to see what changes need to be made to overcome challenges and repeat successes.

In total, 45 community champions will be trained to foster social inclusion through sport and PA in the three disadvantaged communities. In each community, the goal is to impact 250 adolescents aged 14-18 years. (i.e. take part in several activities organized by the community champions).

For each of the core components of the IncluPAS-project an online workshop, report, fact sheets and guidelines will be made freely available through the IncluPAS-website. These aspects together with a smart dissemination strategy, will ensure a wide implementation of the IncluPAS-project in other European cities.