RUGBY TO WORK by Rugby Club Arena Pula

RUGBY TO WORK by Rugby Club Arena Pula Project goal is to reduce violence amongst youth and help young people get job opportunities through involvement in rugby Authors: Lem Treursić, club secretary Perica Bajs, club president September 2013

What’s involved? • Rugby to work is a project conceived as a social-sports program which will allow the participants to learn to play rugby and work as a team through a rigorous sports program. • Through specialized seminars, workshops, working with psychologists and other professionals participants will be encouraged to develop communication skills, improve confidence and learn how to present themselves in best light to a potential employer.

What’s gained by participating? • Participants are given the opportunity to look for work with employers that will seriously consider their application, • Employers get the opportunity to employ a person that finished the program through hard work and dedication proving that he is able to learn new skills and work well in a team.

Why are we doing this? • Most members of our senior team belonging to football supporters' group DEMONI from Pula, that has "a bad reputation" due to aggressive behavior. • Through participation in the project and work with psychologists participants are given the opportunity to channel aggression to rugby pitch through organized competition within the rules of rugby game. This should help to remove at least part of aggressive behavior from „the street” • Functioning within a sports team troubled individuals will learn new codes of conduct that will convey from the pitch to everyday life.

Where did we get the idea?

Is such project needed in Croatia? • • • Male population, aged 20 -30, without a job, is in a difficult financial situation in general and often have difficulties in psycho-physical functioning and reported psychological symptoms such as depression, aggressive behavior and problems in interpersonal relationships and social functioning. During and after 70% of football matches in Croatia fans of one team get into fights with another teams fans. In an interview with fans, we learned that there are even organized fights on a neutral ground in some cases. In fights during and after the game, and organized fights there almost always injuries present in 50% of the participants. In addition, we learned that 90% of members of the group, aged between 20 and 30 are without a permanent job. Our study on a sample of 200 young people have shown that aggressive behavior and high unemployment are present in the so-called marginalized groups such as football fans and members of alternative subcultures. This is the main reason for selecting members of those groups for participants in our project.

Why Rugby? • • Rugby is a sport that requires exceptional physical fitness, teamwork, fast quality decisions, persistence and many other skills that can be applied in everyday life. Rugby, as a contact sport, provides opportunities for people to channel their aggression through competition and physical contact on the sports pitch within the rules of the game. Research has shown that physical activity alone, especially teamwork, which is an integral part of rugby game, acts as a preventive action and treatment for most negative emotional states such as the state of stress, frustration and depression. Teamwork and structure provided by the rules promote social skills in general, which certainly helps people finding and keeping a job.

How do we plan to do it? • • • Through eight weeks, participants will not only undergo physical preparation, learn rugby rules, techniques and tactics to but also talk to a psychologist, social worker, psychiatrist, motivators and managers who will advise them on how to prepare for the job interview and how to get and keep a job. Individual participants will work more on the areas that they have problems with, and a team of experts will follow them throughout the duration of the camp. In cooperation with the Pula entrepreneurs and local government, we will organize a series of job interviews for participants who complete the entire camp, and thus demonstrate perseverance, diligence and reliability

What do we want to achieve? • • Violent behaviour in the participants, which are considered problematic work groups, reduced by at least 50% Participants educated on how to present themselves to the employer at the end of the camp job interviews from 15 employers for 20 -25 participants who pass entire camp Employment of at least 30% of participants Inclusion of 5 -10 young people of different profiles in the project, which would have given them a chance to publishtheir work (recording, music, graffiti, video editing) Obtaining a pitch for rugby club Arena Pula Create a rugby team to compete in Croatian cup and championship

Activity schedule - Gathering participants (10 days) • In preliminary talks with the leaders of football fan group Demoni from Pula, we agreed that we will look for project participants mainly from their fan group • Group leaders will invite interested members to a meeting with members of the club and project organizers, who will choose the people eligible for participation in the project. • If this does approach fails to get a sufficient number of participants we will post ads in media and make posters and flyers that organizers and participants gathered from the Demoni will spread around the city of Pula.

Activity schedule – Coach training (7 days) • Professional coaches from England will be holding seminars and workshops for participating coaches that will instruct them in the latest training methods, and in particular focus on the transfer of their experience in working with troubled people.

Activity schedule – Training - Sports (8 weeks) • • Training will be divided into two parts. The first part will be sports training , which will consist of the basic preparation which will include fitness and gym for all the participants to gain the strength and stamina to continue the project. Along with the basic preparation participants will learn the rules of rugby game. The second part of training will be fitness training that will be implemented by Dubravko Kolec in the gym and on the rugby pitch, Rugby technique and tactics will be coached to individuals and groups on the rugby pitch by our coaches Perica Bajs and Lem Treursić with the help of coaches from England.

Activity schedule – Training – Social skills (8 weeks) • Another part of the training will help participants in finding and retaining employment. This part of the training will be conducted in the form of seminars and workshops focused on developing communication skills , self-confidence , writing CVs and preparing for a job interview. • Professional managers and psychologists involved in the project will work with participants involved in the project. • Workshops and seminars will be held at the Faculty of Economics for group workshops and seminars, and psychologists will work with small groups and individuals in a dedicated office.

Psychosocial support and counseling • • Psychologist, social worker and psychiatrist will monitor participants throughout the process and offer them psychosocial support and advisory work with individual participants as needed. Task of the psychologists will be to provide support to overcome special difficulties and problems, motivational training, individual counseling with participants and, if necessary psycho-diagnostics and testing participants. The social worker will assist in advising participants in the achieving social welfare rights and organize group psychosocial support for the participants. The task of the psychiatrist will be, if necessary, diagnosis and treatment of mental illness.

Motivational tours and activities • • • To encourage participants to devote themselves to the project we will organize motivational training to be carried out by famous athletes and sports professionals such as Enver Šeparović and Zelg Galesic through training in their environment and conversations to convey a portion of their sporting experiences and motivate participants to completely devote themselves to the project. In addition, in various stages of the project we will organize preparatory rugby match against teams from other towns. Early in the project we will organize a teambuilding weekend for the participants to get to know what it means to work as a team completing series of tasks given to them during the weekend.

The final match against RC Zagreb • After 8 weeks of preparation a final match against Rugby Club Zagreb will be organized for the participants where they should show what they managed to achieve in the sports section of the project.

Job interviews • There will be organized job interviews with 15 local employers for participants that remain in the project until the end and show perseverance and commitment.

How much will it cost? Professional work Costs for facilities Costs of travel, accommodation and food Equipment Marketing and Advertising TOTAL € 11. 000 € 3. 000 € 4. 000 € 10. 000 € 1. 500 € 29. 500

Thanks for your atention