During June 2023, Football Supporters Europe (FSE) and the European Football for Development Network (EFDN) visited SAFER project partner Atletico San Lorenzo to gain a deeper understanding of the club’s tailored approach to addressing gender-based violence and discrimination in their community.
Atletico San Lorenzo, based in the heart of the San Lorenzo district of Rome, was formed just over a decade ago but has cultivated a strong culture of acceptance, solidarity and inclusion which exists throughout the club, making them a key pilot site for the SAFER project.
During the visit, FSE and EFDN visited the club’s training facilities and clubhouse to meet some of its board members and key figures to learn more about the club’s culture. This was to identify some of the aspects that cultivate Atletico San Lorenzo’s success with its open and inclusive nature, and how these aspects may be extrapolated to be learnt from in the broader context of the project.
To see the club’s approach in action, FSE and EFDN attended the matches of both the women’s second team and the men’s first team.
FSE’s EU Projects Specialist Mattia Angelini said ‘’The pilot site visit to Atletico San Lorenzo helped us enormously in digging deeper into the club’s culture and understanding how its approach to addressing gender-based violence and discrimination works in the local context, and what can potentially be learnt from the club and applied elsewhere”.
Further pilot site visits are to be conducted through the remainder of 2023 and into 2024, with the next project meeting taking place in early 2024.
FSE would like to thank Atletico San Lorenzo for its cooperation and warm hospitality during the visit.