Fit and con­nect­ed to com­bat loneliness

We are cur­rent­ly look­ing for six sub-projects that will receive fund­ing to reach and sup­port peo­ple of all ages with increased lev­els of lone­li­ness with the help of exer­cise pro­grams. There is a par­tic­u­lar focus on peo­ple with a migrant back­ground who, accord­ing to the Lone­li­ness Barom­e­ter 2024, have increased lev­els of loneliness.

The Ger­man Olympic Sports Con­fed­er­a­tion’s “Fit and con­nect­ed against lone­li­ness” (FIVE) project focus­es on the poten­tial of sport to cre­ate meet­ing spaces for peo­ple of all age groups with increased lev­els of lone­li­ness, espe­cial­ly peo­ple with a migrant back­ground. In six sub-projects, net­works (so-called local “alliances for the pre­ven­tion and alle­vi­a­tion of lone­li­ness”) are being cre­at­ed through­out Ger­many, con­sist­ing of sports clubs, migrant self-orga­ni­za­tions and munic­i­pal actors, who togeth­er imple­ment con­crete (exer­cise) offers to pre­vent and alle­vi­ate lone­li­ness and to strength­en community.

The pilot project will run for three years (2025–2027) and is joint­ly fund­ed by the Fed­er­al Min­istry for Fam­i­ly Affairs, Senior Cit­i­zens, Women and Youth (BMFSFJ) and the Fed­er­al Min­istry of Health (BMG).

Apply now: Fund­ing for six sub-projects

Migrant self-orga­ni­za­tions (MIOs), non-prof­it orga­ni­za­tions and sub­di­vi­sions of DOSB mem­ber orga­ni­za­tions that are active at region­al lev­el (city/district/municipality) can apply for project fund­ing for the two-year fund­ing peri­od (expect­ed to run from 01.07.2025 to 30.06.2027).
MIOs and oth­er orga­ni­za­tions must coop­er­ate with a region­al sports orga­ni­za­tion (e.g. city or dis­trict sports association).

Appli­ca­tions for fund­ing can be sub­mit­ted to the DOSB until March 31, 2025: Become a mod­el region against lone­li­ness now

The sub-projects focus on the fol­low­ing measures:

• At the begin­ning, the coor­di­na­tors of the sub-projects under­go train­ing to raise aware­ness of the issue of lone­li­ness. Par­tic­i­pants are pro­vid­ed with knowl­edge and tools to specif­i­cal­ly address peo­ple expe­ri­enc­ing lone­li­ness and ana­lyze the poten­tial for net­work­ing in their region.
• The coor­di­na­tors iden­ti­fy impor­tant local actors in their region and ini­ti­ate the estab­lish­ment of a region­al net­work (so-called local “alliances for the pre­ven­tion and alle­vi­a­tion of loneliness”).

With the help of a region­al kick-off con­fer­ence and fur­ther net­work meet­ings, new work­ing alliances are cre­at­ed in which needs and access routes to tar­get groups with increased lone­li­ness bur­dens that have hard­ly been reached or not reached at all to date are iden­ti­fied. Appro­pri­ate (exer­cise) offers are then imple­ment­ed for those affect­ed or at risk.

Webi­nar

Inter­est­ed par­ties can find out more about the call for pro­pos­als and ask ques­tions about the appli­ca­tion process in a webi­nar on:

📆 Wednes­day, Feb­ru­ary 26, 2025 from 3–4 p.m.

📆 Tues­day, March 11, 2025 from 6–7 p.m.

Reg­is­tra­tion: To reg­is­ter for the webi­nar, please send an e‑mail to five@dosb.de.