GAME strives for a world with equal opportunities for all children and youth. To achieve this vision, GAME’s mission is to create lasting social change through youth-led street sports and culture. Many of the nonprofit’s programs seek to integrate vulnerable ethnic-minority youth (refugees, IDPs, immigrants, etc.) into the community and offers the opportunity for them to grow as peer-educators and drivers of social change in their local setting.
The activities are targeted young people in less-advantaged neighborhoods in 8 countries in Europe, The Middle East, and Africa and span across ethnic, religious, and social divides. In 2020 GAME had 1,211 volunteers who facilitated street sports practices, tournaments, workshops, and open gyms in 79 neighborhoods across EMEA (+5% compared to 2019). The engagement of this record high number of volunteer role models (+22%) has allowed GAME to maintain the level of impact despite the pandemic.
During 2020, GAME shifted to online training of volunteers and developed a risk matrix, which allowed local staff to navigate the impact of Covid-19 and ensure safe operations. To keep the children and youth active, some of the creative new initiatives included splitting up the GAME Zones and sending out GAME kits with balls and cones to allow for groups of maximum 10 participants to play together. Online practice sessions and videos using the hashtag GAMExHOME was also used to keep everyone physically active during lock-down.
Over the last five years, GAME has successfully scaled the impact by providing micro grants worth 2 mill. USD to more than 500 youth-led street sports projects. In 2021 this method was exported to Lebanon, where the EU as a trusted donor has asked GAME to implement the Street Sports Incubator.
An acute need for social change in urban areas due to an increase in urban youth populations and historically high numbers of people on the move has led GAME to refocus its strategy to better address these challenges. At the annual general meeting in 2019, a new strategy with the name “Growing Together” was approved for 2019-2023. The new strategy will allow the organization to scale the impact and improve social cohesion, health and gender equality for underserved urban younger generations (5-25 years old) challenged by marginalization, social economics, and gender & health inequality. By the end of 2021, 103 activities under Growing Together have been completed including a new organizational structure strengthening the cross-cutting functions (e.g. MEL, Innovation) and a new online training tool, which allows for Training-of-Trainers during lockdowns (see gameacademy.ngo).
A set of five Design Principles together with an online Innovation Toolbox have also been developed to ensure that social design and youth-led innovation stays at the forefront. Having an “ear to the asphalt”, “playing with the ideas”, and “taking it to the street” to test the ideas, constitute three of these.
In 2021 GAME’s indoor facility for street sports in Aalborg was awarded the IAKS Award for sports architecture. The sustainable and climate friendly re-use of an abandoned, industrial building and the creation of lasting social change through youth-led sports and culture was what convinced the jury.
The GAME House in Aalborg has come into being through a social design-based approach with the youth playing a central role. After the first years of operations, the 4 mill. USD facility has attracted more than 4,000 active members of all ages and become the biggest sports provider in Denmark’s fourth largest city.
