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 10 countries in Europe, The Middle East, and Africa and span across ethnic, religious, and social divides. In 2022 GAME had 1,394 volunteers who facilitated street sports practices, tournaments, workshops, and open gyms in 79 neighborhoods across EMEA. The engagement of this record high number of volunteer role models (+15% compared to 2021) has allowed GAME to increase its vigor in creating equal opportunities for all children and youth.
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. This strategy has allowed 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 2022, a new strategy is taking its form. The new strategy with the name “Focusing our GAME” will reiterate the focus on street sports and culture, strengthen the impact in three geographical regions, and develop new business models, with the intention of increasing the funds available for innovation.
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 2022 GAME was awarded the Danisgh Royal Crown Prince Couple’s Social Award for having created “a cool and attractive focal point for positive and strong communities”
In 2019 the facility GAME 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.
