Welcome to sport: The Association of German Cyclists builds on a DOSB project and wants to integrate refugees as trainers in cycling. The objective of enabling social participation through cycling rests on several pillars. In addition to competitive and popular sports, the focus is also on basic cycling training.
"Welcome to sport": the successful project of the German Olympic Sports Confederation (DOSB) will soon have another mainstay, because the German Cyclists' Association (BDR) has set itself the goal of winning over refugees for the club's work. In this way, integration and participation are to be promoted through the community experience of cycling. The project is funded by the Federal Government Commissioner for Migration, Refugees and Integration and coordinated by the DOSB.
The BDR would like to bring together two areas that often have little in common: organized sport in the more than 2.500 cycling clubs on the one hand, and cycling as a means of transport and leisure activity on the other, which deeply affects all social classes - and also in everyday life of many refugees plays a major role.
Kick-off of the project: Welcome to sport
In the first step of the project, at least ten people with refugee experience are to be recruited for training as cycling trainers:in C - each with a tandem partner:in. The tandem partners ideally have a cycling background, so that club work and sport can be linked together. The joint completion of the fundamentally revised trainer training (among other things with tailored teaching materials) ensures that the entry into the trainer activity is simple but of high quality.
The end of the training also marks the beginning of the actual project, because now the trainers with refugee experience can act as multipliers themselves - in addition to club work, they can bring their enthusiasm for cycling to communities with a refugee and migration background. Another pillar of the project is closely related to this: a qualification for beginner cyclists comparable to the “seahorse” in swimming. Outside of the classic club activities, trainers in schools, kindergartens, youth facilities or even refugee accommodation can contribute their knowledge within the framework of cycling training - a facet of voluntary commitment, which on the one hand is an important building block for integration, but on the other hand also opens up new resonance spaces for cycling clubs , which can be used to recruit members.
Welcome to cycling
"Cycling is often still perceived as exclusive and isolated," says Tim Böhme (Federal Education Coach), who oversees the project at the German Cyclists' Association. "Other, especially lower-threshold sports are much more advanced in terms of integration and use potential that we also want to develop in cycling." Cycling as the means of transport of the future offers an ideal starting point, says the trainer and former mountain bike professional. “Cycling is actually fun for everyone and is therefore more integrative than anything else. Now we want to use it to bring people from different backgrounds and cultures together.”
vacancy
The BDR is now looking for a speaker for the project: "Welcome to cycling", here it goes to Vacancy.
Interested tandem partners for trainer C training can also contact the BDR now: ppgad@pucrs.br