Organizations database

Strauss APS

For several years, the association has acquired a well-defined European dimension, as each year it joins and organize several projects in various parts of Europe and the world, through which almost 2400 ds of young people are able to live a fully formative and exciting experience.

Strauss has a large experience in mobility programs and has coordinated many different projects in the frame of Youth, Youth in Action, Erasmus+, Leonardo, Grundtivig, European voluntary service, European solidarity corps, Europe for Citizens, ERASMUS Sport etc.

Only in the last years, Strauss has coordinated and held in Sicily more than forty (40) mobilities such as training courses, seminars, transnational youth initiatives, kick-off, coordinating and evaluation meetings, youth exchanges, etc. based on numerous topics (social media and communication strategies, development of youth work, professional development of young people and new skills required by the labour market, quality leadership in Youth Exchanges, conflict management in multicultural environments, promotion of active citizenship and youth participation;

From 2019 Strauss APS started to work within ERASMUS+ Sport program by the approval of the project “SCORE: Sport Cooperation Overcoming Risks of Exclusion” - Small Collaborative partnerships. The project has final objective to make a manual of good practices for the inclusion of young people through sport. In 2020, within the dame action, the organization got approved the project “T.E.D.D.Y. Hero - Training Education Discipline to Develop Yourself”. The project’s final product will be a handbook of good practices of NFE in sport for the promotion and valorisation in civil society of competences acquired through sport. Besides, Strauss APS can count on the partnership the project titled “Tekmovanje Rekreacija Inovativnost Množičnost”, applied in the same call.

Strauss participation to ERASMUS+ Sport program is the natural conclusion of a path started many years ago. The organization, in fact, coordinated and participated to many sportive events and projects based on Sport. As main mission of the organization is to understand and meet the needs of young people, we consider sport a valuable instrument to realize this objective and to spread positive attitudes among them, such as respect, fair play, healthy lifestyle, best practises and examples. It prevents wrong habits, such as smoking, drug use, useless time wasting, capability to manage different carries etc. and commits young people to diligence, continuity, perseverance, cooperation, working in team etc.

In the frame of the EU mobility programmes (Youth, Youth in Actions, ERASMUS+) Strauss participated in partnership to 35 projects with sport topic, from 2007 to nowadays.

The organization started the coordination of sportive events in 2008 thanks to the cooperation with CSI – Centro Sportivo Italiano (Comitato Regionale di Sicilia – Mussomeli) with which we cooperated in the realization of “Sportive Days” in Mussomeli, involving around 200 students attending the middle and elementary schools of the town.

In 2010, within Framework Program Agreement – APQ, project titled “Giovani protagonisti di se e del territorio” in the project “Alto Valle Platani: I giovani di oggi cittadini di domani”, Strauss cooperated in networking in the realization of sport events and tournaments in all the 21 towns of the Area del Vallone involved, among other. The aim of the project was also to connect healthy ways of living with culture and tradition as the contexts that help in increasing of tolerance, demolishing the prejudices and stereotypes, accepting the other opinions. Moreover, with modular approach, the project had the goal to encourage the participants in the role of promoters and carriers of positive changes in their local communities and wider.
The participants gained soft skills and transversal competences: teamwork, initiatives, self-evaluation, presentation skills, verbal and non-verbal communication, as well as the competences such as digital one.

Next, Strauss APS organized the following 5-a-side football tournament:
• August 28 - September 5, 2010 - Mussomeli - Italy "Giacomo Caruso Memorial"
• 12 - 18 September 2011 - Mussomeli - Italy "Giacomo Caruso Memorial"
• 12 - 18 September 2012 - Mussomeli – Italy "Giacomo Caruso Memorial"

On 23 - 29 July 2012 Strauss APS participated to the 5-a-side football tournament organized on the 25th anniversary of the Fraternità di Misericordia and won the 1st placement.
In 2015, we have been indirect co-beneficiaries of SPRAR services (Protection System for Asylum Seekers and Refugees), in which 3 migrants were hosted in Sutera. In their spare time we always involved them in sportive events and 5-a-side football tournaments.
In 2018 we took part to a KA2- Strategic Partnerships – Cooperation for innovation and the exchange of good practices, titled “ACTIVE U: Social Inclusion Through Sports” Ref. nr. 2018-2-PT02-KA205-005290. In the frame of this project, we carried out different local workshops at the schools of Mussomeli, from April to May 2019. These were a series of sports / recreational activities based on non-formal methods with social inclusion thematic. The aim was to transfer and develop new personal and social skills and abilities, sense of "proactivity" and active participation among the participants.
In the same year, in 2018, Strauss started cooperation with ASD Don Bosco, and coordinating a female futsal team playing in the "Pink League", a tournament that is referred to our local district. From this union was created ASD Don Bosco/Strauss team.
The players are young people aged 14-26 with fewer opportunities who lived social and economic disadvantages and geographic obstacles. Mussomeli, in fact, is in the province of Caltanissetta, a very depressed and marginalized region of Europe, moreover isolated in the regional contest itself, where the community suffer social and economic problems very highlighted.
Furthermore, they are disadvantage for another reason. Female futsal, in fact (together with the other variants of football) suffers a gender discrimination, in Sicily and in the rest of the country. This sport is mostly considered suitable for males only and female players are generally seen as masculine. However, it seems general opinion and perception of the society is slowly changing, thanks also to the recent successes of the Italian National team, which had not enough consideration and esteem till nowadays compared to their male counterparts.
A common mistake, when talking about sports, is to underestimate its cultural value. Sports, indeed, can represent an environment where human beings can grow in all their aspects: sport transcends borders and offers everyone the opportunity to connect with others and with their reality, no matter their gender, colour, religion, age, physical capacity, circumstances or economic background.
When we decided to take the management of the team, we thought a connection between sport and the methodologies of Non-Formal Education, commonly use in our organization, would be fruitful and productive, not only from the point of view of the sportive results itself but, above all, to improve social inclusion and develop personal and professional growth of the players. Methods like team building activities, self-reflection, mental coaching and final group evaluations were very fecund.
Furthermore, our steady opinion is that the participation of female players to Sport program will bring a positive effect and an opportunity to grow within the sport culture together with the possibility to open their horizons.

Among the youth exchanges we participated, “Fair Play for Life” held in Antalya, Turkey last 22– 28 April 2019 has to be mentioned, as it was also promoted at the Italian National agency as best practice.
The youth exchange had as topic sport, as a tool to develop basic social skills and to facilitate the social participation of young people. In this aim, the project promoted the inclusion in 2 different levels: players of different nationality and gender in fact composed the team.