Sport to Enhance Transferable Skills and Employment Opportunities

By providing opportunities for young people to develop transferable life skills - characteristics such as leadership, perseverance, social and moral character, self-esteem, commitment to teamwork, problem-solving, and organizational ability - sport helps participants to realize their potential as productive employees and citizens. Sport also offers an important avenue for creating youth employment opportunities. The SDP IWG Report, “ Harnessing the Power of Sport for Development and Peace: Recommendations to Governments ”, made the following policy and programmatic recommendations which Member States, with SDP IWG support, are encouraged to implement:

POLICY RECOMMENDATIONS:

Phase I:

• Recognize the different developmental stages of children and youth to ensure that physical education and sport policies, implementation guidelines, training resources, programmes, and curricula are age-appropriate.

Phase II:

• Provide children and youth with a direct voice and decision-making opportunities in the development of physical education, sport and recreation policies and action plans that concern them.

PROGRAMME RECOMMENDATIONS:

Phase I:

• Create opportunities for children and youth to participate in dialogue and decision-making with regard to the day-to-day activities of sport and physical activity programmes.
• Focus sport programmes on education and development (not winning), emphasizing skills improvement, tactical knowledge, success for all participants, enhanced confidence, positive social relationships, choices, and enjoyment.

Phase II:

To harness sport's potential for community renewal through employment, it is recommended that sport and development actors in communities should ¹ :

• Develop a sport and employment plan;
• Support the creation of new employment opportunities in the sport sector;
• Adopt a policy of local recruitment and provide local opportunities for related skill development, training and qualifications;
• Provide local opportunities to increase employability and transferable skills through sport; and
• Demonstrate the impact of sport and employment projects.

 POLICY BRIEF:

To view a briefing note containing background information on Sport to Enhance Transferrable Skills and Employment, click here.

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