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Immigrant Sport Association Looks for Oulu Support |
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By Sport
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Wednesday, 10 June 2009 |
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Helsinki-based group wants to use sport to help immigrants integrate into Finland.
 Christian Thibault
The head of the association, Christian Thibault did a presentation on his project ‘Get Moving!’ (‘Liikkukaa!’) to the city authorities and met with Oulu’s immigrant football and cricket teams.
The forty-seven year-old German, formerly a gardening entrepreneur, came to southern Finland 25 years-ago to help his Finnish father-in-law run his gardening business. Eventually, he established his own green-fingered company but more recently he has turned his attention to helping immigrants get involved in sport, which he believes is a vital way for them to socialise with each other as well as blend into Finnish society.
The group’s mission is to use sport and culture as a means of achieving ‘social inclusion and intercultural respect’ as well as equal opportunities for foreigners in Finland who want to get involved in sport.
‘The group started about ten years ago,’ explains Thibault. Apparently, there was some derelict land outside Helsinki and a sports hall that was on the verge of shutting down anyway. Immigrants, ranging in age from ’14 to about 68’ began to meet on the fields and play football once a week and then in the winter they could use the sports hall for free.
‘But then the field got fenced off and the sports hall started charging. So it became necessary to get organised. To get good facilities, we had to be part of a football league.’
So, different immigrant football teams – some based around nationality – were formed under the umbrella of an immigrant sports association that did all it could to help them out. The group evolved into a multiple sports association and now deals not only with football but floorball, volleyball and swimming as well.
In Thibault’s view, football is particularly important in promoting ethnic harmony because ‘it is the world’s most popular sport.’ In fact one of the group’s projects is entitled ‘BOFSI’ – ‘Benefits of Football for Social Inclusion.’
 soccer and cricket players meet Thibault
When dealing with a Finnish audience, Thibault, who has been director of the group since 2008, refers to his group as ‘multicultural.’ In fact Liikkukaa gives out a yearly award to people for ‘outstanding multicultural and tolerance work. However, he wanted to stress that, in his view, ‘he word has become associated with people not integrating and just preserving their own culture. We are working for tolerance and integration.’
One of the group’s main activities is the ‘Respect’ campaign which attempts to make Finnish sport – and especially football – more tolerant of foreigners. It tries to achieve this through a post campaign, youth tournaments and various other outreach activities.
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