The ReWiS team offers different courses of ball games, mainly football, volleyball and basketball, taking place at regular sport facilities of the city of Oldenburg. Additionally, a fitness/dance class for women takes place at one of their partner institutions, childcare included. What was meant for refugees in the beginning – a non-competitive sport offer, free of charge, focusing on the social and fun aspect of playing together – had soon proven to be attractive for other people, as well.This led to an expansion of the original target group. There is no membership or registration necessary. People can join without commitment which is highly attractive for people with refugee or unclear residence status since their living situation can change rapidly from one day to another.

An annual summer gathering with food and ball games serves as a meeting spot for people who are or used to be involved as trainers or participants, for former refugees who have now started regular jobs and still enjoy coming back to this social event.

The project originated in a university seminar at the University of Oldenburg in 2014. Being very aware of the special needs and precarious situation of people with refugee status, the concept included a low-threshold approach in terms of time or financial commitment. The students were able to get in touch with refugee shelters from the area in an early stage of the project which established connection and trust. The information on the flyers and on social media was translated in several languages from the very beginning. This led to an early success of the project which was then continued after the seminar had terminated. This brought along the new challenge to organise new sport venues, because they could not use the ones at the university anymore. In order to be eligible to enter the city’s regular allocation process of sport facilities, the students founded an official sport club. Supported by the City Sport Association, the students invested a lot of voluntary resources into the programme to raise funding and to keep it running. They received several awards for their project. In terms of capacity building, they manage to involve new students via a service-learning seminar at the University.

On a structural level, some of the former participants took on the role of trainers themselves and even became official members of the sport club. Some have founded their own football club in order to compete in the local league and play more seriously.