Play Proud
Safe Space
Play Proud
Play Proud is a coach-centred approach aimed at making sports programmes inclusive for the LGBTQ+ community. Through a cooperation with Comic Relief, coaches, and programme managers from 10 grassroots football organisations will jointly implement a gender-sensitive methodology for 1,000 beneficiaries from some of the most under-served communities in Europe, Africa and Asia.
Play Proud will cultivate LGBTQ+ inclusivity through the empowerment of coaches and leaders within the global ‘football for good’ community. The core Play Proud Programme team is made up of representatives from streetfootballworld, Impact International, the Inclusion Playbook and Football V Homophobia. With a diverse cohort of coaches from the United Kingdom, India, South Africa, and Zimbabwe, the Play Proud programme team will work with two coaches from each organisation, enabling them to become catalysts for change in their organisations and wider communities.
The Play Proud methodology covers a compilation of individual and communal leadership development, LGBTQ+ sensitivity knowledge transfer, discrimination and communication style reflection, LGBTQ+ participant inclusive sport activities, and the development of organisational action plans. Through in-person residential training weeks for football coaches with expert-led sessions, virtual mentoring, and organisational development processes, Play Proud offers each participant over 100+ hours of in-person and virtual training and mentoring throughout a 12-month programme.
The project implementation partners are:
