Sport dans la Ville

Sport dans la Ville

Project country: France

Sport dans la Ville is France’s leading non-profit serving disadvantaged youth through sports and job readiness training. It works to foster equal opportunities by helping young people from underprivileged communities to integrate socially and access employment. Its mission is to provide young people with the confidence, ambition, and resources to have aspirations and succeed in life.

Every year, more than 12,000 young people are reached by the organisation through the creation of 80 sports fields, either football or basketball, in low-income neighbourhoods. Sport dans la Ville offers free sports activities led twice a week by qualified coaches.

The aim is to get young people from low-income neighbourhoods into the professional world through four programmes:

- After-school tutoring programme

- Personalized support by a professional development coach

- Women’s empowerment in sport and the workplace

- Support for business creation/incubation

Each programme is designed to respond as closely as possible to the specific needs of its target groups.

In 2025-2026, the Eurofins Foundation is supporting the project “Inclusion and diversity through sports for young people in Rezé-Château, Nantes, France.

This project has been launched in response to the growing inequalities between low-income neighbourhoods and the rest of the Nantes urban area. In Le Château, the lack of professional networks and opportunities is particularly critical: the unemployment rate is two to three times higher than the national average. Young people are the most affected, with 27% of 16-25-year-olds not in education, employment or training. In addition, one third of Le Château’s population is under 25, making youth a priority target for reviving the social cohesion and economic attractiveness in this territory.

Sport dans la Ville addresses these specifics challenges by using sport as a gateway to education, training, and employment. Through regular activities on the new basketball field, they will help young people build psychosocial skills, develop self-confidence, and progressively access their professional integration programmes. The project also responds to the weakening of social ties in the neighbourhood.

Free sports sessions twice a week, led by certified coaches, will create a safe, inclusive meeting place and foster community cohesion. Collaboration with other local associations (such as the Centre Socio-Culturel du Chateau) will further strengthen the social offer for the residents and promote innovation.

Eurofins’ grant will contribute to the construction of quality sports equipment and the deployment of sports programs and support towards orientation, training and employment in the heart of the “Château” district. The field will be used on Wednesday afternoons and Saturdays by the association and freely accessible to the public the rest of the time.

This project contributes to the following United Nations Sustainable Development Goals