The Impact of Team Sports on Social Isolation

Sport is often used to achieve success through competition, financial gain or personal achievement. Yet, perhaps the biggest benefit from sport is that…

It promotes social inclusion

amongst the disadvantaged.

Sport transcends boundaries and provides opportunities for all human beings regardless of race, colour, religion, age, physical ability, circumstance or economic background, to connect with each other and the world around them.

Sporting programs provide vulnerable and at risk people with a place to go to which is not only physically safe from conflict around them, but also emotionally safe. The programs can also provide a welcome relief from daily struggle.

For people who have been displaced, who become disaffected or simply disengaged from their community, belonging to an ongoing sporting program or team can be a lifeline, especially during times of chaos where routine and stability are desperately needed yet hard to find.

When sports programs are structured, the results build cohesion and promote social inclusion for the participants of the programs as well as the wider community.

Team sport in its very name aims to promote participation. When sport is understood and applied in this way, social inclusion amongst the disadvantaged populations is a natural outcome as well as an easily measurable unit of success.

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