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In a public square in Athens, a girl sees a skateboard and runs toward it.
She is with her father, passing through Agios Panteleimonas, one of the city’s busy central neighborhoods. Around them, families move through the day in different languages. Some children are waiting while parents work. Some are new to the city. Some are simply looking for somewhere to be.
The girl asks if she can join in.
By the end of the session, she tells the Free Movement Skateboarding team how incredible it feels that something like this is happening right there, in the open, in a square anyone can enter. She keeps coming back with her family. Eventually, they bring another child from their neighborhood, a young girl from Nigeria whose parents are working and cannot bring her themselves.
What started with one child stepping onto a board becomes something bigger: two families connected, children playing together and a public space turning, for a few hours, into a place of trust.
Each year on June 20, UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency’s World Refugee Day honors people who have been forced to flee their homes because of conflict, persecution or crisis. This year, the theme of the day is clear: “Until everyone is safe, we show up.”
For young people navigating displacement, safety means protection from immediate harm. It can also mean something quieter and more everyday: a coach who remembers you, a place where you are allowed to make mistakes, a group that welcomes you before you have the words to explain who you are or what you have been through.
In Europe, three organizations connected to Beyond Sport’s work are showing what that kind of safety can look like in practice. Through the Sport Together Fund, SPORTS for MORE eV and Sportief Besteed Groep are using sport to create spaces of belonging, trust and connection for refugee, asylum-seeking, migrant and displaced young people, while Free Movement Skateboarding offers an additional example of this work from across Beyond Sport’s programs.
The Fund was co-designed with an Expert Advisory Group, comprised of activists, practitioners, athletes, researchers and individuals with lived refugee experiences. The Sport Together Fund is guided by targeted principles.
Sport is not a substitute for protection, policy or long-term solutions. It cannot resolve the uncertainty of an asylum process or replace the rights and resources every young person deserves. But in cities and communities where children and young people may be rebuilding their lives around unfamiliar streets, languages and systems, sport can offer something immediate and human: a reason to join in.
A place to be, without needing to explain
For Free Movement Skateboarding, showing up starts in the open spaces of Athens.
Greece has long been one of Europe’s key arrival and transit countries for refugees, and in Athens, questions of welcome, housing, belonging and public space are part of daily life for many refugee and migrant families. Free Movement’s work sits inside that reality, with sessions held in the squares, basketball courts and schoolyards where young people are already spending time.
The organization describes skateboarding as a way to co-create safe spaces. That begins with trust, trauma-informed communication, inclusive practices and quality time. But the first invitation can be much simpler.
A child may not want to speak yet. They may not know the language. They may not be ready to open up.
So they offer a skateboard.
That small act changes the terms of the moment. It is not a form to fill out, a question to answer or a story to tell. It is an invitation to move, try, fall, laugh and keep going.
“Without trust and access, ‘belonging’ cannot exist,” the organization shared, “and that is exactly what we strive for every day.”
In sessions, the goal is not excellence. It is joy, freedom and the chance to take up space without fear of judgment. When young people fall off the board, the team often hears that they enjoy it. Falling becomes part of the fun, not a reason to leave.
That freedom matters, especially for young people who may not always feel welcome in public spaces. Free Movement’s sessions are designed to be welcoming and accessible for people from refugee and displaced communities, while also creating space for women, girls, transgender, non-binary and gender-diverse individuals as well as participants with disabilities.
On the board, inclusion means adapting to different needs. Off the board, it means relationships that last beyond the session. Parents begin to recognize the coaches. Families meet each other. Children bring friends, siblings and neighbors. A square becomes more than a place to pass through. It becomes a place to return to.
A gym where strength looks different for everyone
In Berlin, SPORTS for MORE eV builds belonging through boxing.
Germany is home to large communities of people who have fled conflict and persecution, including more than a million people displaced from Ukraine. For many young refugees, arriving in a new country can mean losing the routines, relationships and sense of certainty that once shaped their lives.
Inside the organization’s gym, community building is not a side effect of the work. It is the work.
From new participants, the organization often hears a simple line:
“I immediately felt welcome. Just as I am.”
The team shared that welcome is important for young refugees, because many have lost so much of what made life feel stable.
“They deserve a community that tells them: you belong here and we’ll look after you.”
Boxing can often be associated with toughness or competition. At SPORTS for MORE, it becomes a way to build trust. The sport offers a shared starting point across language barriers and cultural differences, rooted in values like respect, fairness, tolerance and mutual support.
Success in the program is defined broadly. A competitive win in the ring matters. So does the moment a young refugee recognizes her own strength for the first time.
The organization also invites young people to step into roles with additional responsibility. It is the participants who help with tasks, support new members and shape the group culture themselves, building a feeling that their actions matter and they have something to contribute.
During a summer 2025 visit, Anna Nicole Heinrich, President of the Synod of the Evangelical Church in Germany, came to the club to speak with young refugees from Ukraine. The conversation moved beyond sport, with young people sharing what it felt like to live in Germany, how they were experiencing the war in Ukraine and what hopes they carried for the future.
For SPORTS for MORE, the moment reinforced a need that is easy to overlook: young people need spaces where what they say matters to someone else.
The gym is one of those spaces. It is where mistakes are tolerated, difficult topics are discussed and young people are open about who they are — inclusive of their stories, feelings, dreams and abilities.
As one participant put it: “The coaches believe in us, often before we believe in ourselves.”
A way into the community
In the Netherlands, Sportief Besteed Groep sees sport as a bridge into belonging and future possibilities.
For young people from asylum-seeking and migrant communities, starting over can feel isolating. A new country often means a new language; unfamiliar systems and the absence of support that can help a place feel like home. For some, daily life is also shaped by temporary housing, uncertainty and long waits for decisions that affect their future.
Sportief’s work begins with a belief that young people should feel accepted for who they are, regardless of background, culture, religion or where they come from. Safety, the organization shared, is not only about physical protection. It is about feeling “seen, respected and valued within a community.”
Sport can make that possible in ways that feel natural. You do not need to speak the same language to celebrate a goal, encourage a teammate or share a moment of achievement. The emotions of sport — joy, effort, frustration, pride — are understood quickly.
“To play is a fundamental part of being human, and through sport we discover how much we have in common.”
– Lauren Logush, Strategic Advisor European & International Projects, Sportief Besteed Groep
One participant from an asylum seeker community came to activities quiet and reserved. For months, he rarely spoke with the group. But he kept showing up. Over time, through regular sessions and relationships with coaches and peers, something shifted. He began interacting more, taking on a more active role and building confidence.
Eventually, he was so inspired by the experience that he decided to pursue an education to become a sports coach himself.
For Sportief, that is the deeper purpose of the work. Participation matters, but the impact does not end when the session is done. A young person who once stood at the edge of a group can begin to see themselves as someone with strengths, relationships and a future – embraced by their community.
Until everyone is safe
On World Refugee Day, the call to “show up” is global. It asks governments to uphold the right to seek safety, communities to welcome people forced to flee and all of us to remember that safety should never depend on where someone was born, what language they speak or what papers they carry.
For community sport organizations, showing up often happens in quieter ways, repeated week after week.
A skateboard placed in the hands of a child in an Athens square. A Berlin boxing gym that welcomes a young person just as they are. A sport session in the Netherlands where someone who once stayed silent begins to imagine becoming a coach.
These moments do not solve displacement. But they can create the everyday conditions of belonging: trust, joy, recognition and connection.
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