The project

Introduction and background

I-PLAY — Inclusive Heritage Games: Practice, Learn, Appreciate, and Youth — is an Erasmus+ Sport cooperation partnership (Project ID 101244092) running from 1 February 2026 to 31 July 2027. It brings together three organisations from Spain, Türkiye and Poland around a simple idea: the traditional games and sports of a place are one of the most effective, least expensive and most joyful tools available for social inclusion.

Traditional games are rarely codified, rarely commercialised and almost never gender-segregated by design. That makes them unusually adaptable: rules can be negotiated, equipment improvised, and teams mixed. I-PLAY documents these games, trains educators to run them inclusively, and shares everything openly in four languages.

Methodology

The project works through three pillars. Community-based learning collects games directly from the people who still play them, with elders, clubs and schools as co-authors rather than subjects. The digital toolkit turns each game into a usable resource: a game sheet, an adaptation guide and a short video. Policy advocacy carries the evidence to municipal and regional sport authorities so that inclusive heritage games appear in public sport planning.

Work packages

WP1 Project management and quality assurance. WP2 State of the art research in the three countries and a transnational synthesis. WP3 Development of the game sheets and the training curriculum. WP4 Piloting with youth groups, schools and clubs. WP5 Digital platform and open resources. WP6 Dissemination, policy recommendations and sustainability.