Football and volleyball, table tennis and goal wall shooting: Sports students from the university helped to organise the summer festival of the Lower Saxony Reception Authority (LAB) in Oldenburg with sports activities for refugees.
The students on the "Sport and Lifestyle" master's degree programme wanted to find out which sports are particularly popular in order to recommend them for a regular programme. With the support of the LAB, slacklining Bremen e.V. and Refugees Welcome in Sports (ReWIS) e.V. - originally a student initiative from the same degree programme - a broad exercise programme was created.
Surprisingly for the students, who had expected to be mainly interested in football, volleyball or table tennis: "slacklining" in particular, which was unknown to many residents, was met with great enthusiasm. The students stretched three straps between trees on the grounds of the reception centre and let interested people balance on them.
The students were there as part of their seminar "Analysing and designing sports activities for refugees", led by sports sociologist Rea Kodalle and student Micòl Feuchter. In this seminar, the participants deal with the planning of such sports programmes, among other things. Unlike usual, however, the seminar was not designed to create programmes based on theory. Instead, the students first gained practical insights by visiting various facilities and talking to social workers, administrative staff and volunteers about their everyday experiences in dealing with refugees.
While refugees live in communal accommodation for longer periods and therefore generally have the opportunity to join a sports club, the length of stay in a state reception centre is so short that low-threshold sports activities on site are particularly attractive for refugees, according to the organisers. In collaboration with the LAB Niedersachsen in Oldenburg, the students therefore developed the idea of taking part in the centre's summer festival. The students are now using their experiences to develop sports concepts for refugees and organise improved sports activities themselves.
