MESIS CBS in Lisbon: learning the Outsport method

MESIS: Coaches and PE teachers in Lisbon concluding the training phase on the Outsport method

From April 10th to April 13th, more than 25 people from different countries dove into workshops and physical activities based on Education Through Sport (ETS) and the Outsport method. The last MESIS Capacity Building Session took place in Lisbon, organised by MESIS partner GCP - Ginásio Clube Português.

Just like it happened in Rome and Ljubljana, coaches, PE teachers, youth workers, trainers, observers (job-shadowing trainers), volunteers and staff members attended a 4-day learning session full of experiences and mutual learning opportunities.

The trainers’ team shaped exercises and activities according to the general framework set up in 2023 in Sofia at the beginning of the project.

The special location by the Ocean in Oeiras allowed the group to run frisbee exercises on the beach and perform other outdoor activities under the sun and in the sea breeze, reflecting on rules, fairplay and giving the group the possibility to agree on more inclusive rules.

The role card exercise was played through the version of the privilege walk, in line with the basketball game in Ljubljana. These exercises are shaped around the learning objective to make participants understand and experience marginalisation from both an emotional and rational point of view. They are based on the “Football for all?” ETS practice described in the Outsport Toolkit.

Finally, the trainers’ team confirmed the theatre of the oppressed exercise following the example of Rome and Ljubljana - an interactive practice inspired by the work of Brazilian playwright Augusto Boal in the 1970s.

The Outsport version uses sport as a social context to imagine scenarios and intervene into actions, by asking participants to imagine and stage sport-related situations, (e.g.: locker rooms, sport facilities, fans' environments or even a group of people talking about sports). The learning objective is to improve bystanders' attitude and skills to intervene and stop hateful and discriminatory behaviours.

After each practice, the debriefing part allowed participants to talk about how they felt, what they observed and what they thought about the experience.

The Outsport method

The Outsport method applies ETS - Education Through Sport to LGBTQIA+ inclusion. It has been recently recognized by the World Health Organisation and focuses on discrimination based on SOGIESC issues (Sexual Orientation, Gender Identity, Gender Expression and Sexual Characteristics).

The ETS "golden rules"

This activities, like the others, met the ETS “golden rules”:

Clear learning objectives;
Well selected physical activity/sport experience;
Adequate debriefing.

Education Through Sport is indeed based on using experiential learning as part of Human Rights Education. It works on attitudes, skills and values by leveraging on the emotional side. This way, it becomes easier to build knowledge about human-rights related topics, in this case SOGIESC.

The MESIS Capacity Building in Lisbon concluded the first phase of a broader process of continuous learning and competence building, involving trainers, learners, training designers and host organisations.

The trainers’ team was composed by Rita Nunes, Daniel Simões and Michele Mommi.

Next steps

The MESIS team is already working on designing the e-learning course based on the three Capacity Building Sessions’ results. The outcome of these actions will lead to the design of e-learning contents in 7 different languages, structured for operators who train sport coaches and PE teachers, and for educators who directly work in the field.

These contents will be organised in an open access MOOC and in open resources for the EPALE platform (educational activities and pedagogic exercises)

MESIS CBS in Lisbon: learning the Outsport method