Indicator history

Although there are many sports club organised for and by migrants, a study ("Integration und soziale Inklusion im organisierten Sport") carried out on behalf of the Ministry of Sports found out that migrants are underrepresented in sports clubs. The reasons are manifold: risk of poverty, precarious jobs, long and irregular work times, long distances to sport facilities as well as an above average number of children. These financial and time-related barriers are hampering the participation of migrants in sports clubs. They affect adults as well as children. Additionally, there are cultural as well as language barriers.

The study further discovered that positive measures in order to include migrants so far mainly concentrated on children and adolescents and to a limited extent also on women, girls and asylum seekers. Two important target groups were neglected so far: parents with migration background and self-organised migrant groups.

Nevertheless there are many migrant sports associations comprising a wide range of sports clubs from different national origins and diverse kinds of sports. Especially for the first generation of migrants it was important to build up sports associations because they didn't have access to other sports clubs. Sports clubs are contributing to a positive self-image of migrants. In order to promote this kind of self-organisation the Austrian Integration Funds has introduced the "Integrationspreis für Sport" (Sports Integration Award) to distinguish migrant sports projects which are especially sustainable and innovative concerning the integration of migrants in the field of sports.

Sources:  

http://www.m-media.or.at/sport/migration-integration-sport/2010/05/12/ 

http://www.integrationsfonds.at/news/aktuelle_news/integrationspreis_sport_verliehen/