Esports, Accessibility and Inclusion: Building Practical Tools for the Participation of Young People with Disabilities

Esports are often associated with competition, performance, and entertainment. Yet they can also serve as spaces for social connection, learning, belonging, and participation.

For many young people with disabilities, however, digital and gaming environments can still present significant barriers (not only technical or physical ones, but also social, communicative, organisational, and cultural). Making esports more accessible therefore means working on the environments themselves, on the skills and awareness of coaches, on participation practices, and on the conditions that genuinely enable more people to feel part of a team, a community, or an event.

Sports for Everyone! was born from this idea (and, above all, from the strong expertise developed in the Nordic countries in this field): using esports as a space for inclusion, youth participation, and the reduction of social isolation, while developing practical tools for organisations, coaches, youth workers, and other stakeholders working with young people with disabilities.

Sports for Everyone! is an Erasmus+ KA220 project in the field of Youth, running from 2026 to 2028 and involving organisations from Iceland, Italy, and Finland. The project is coordinated by ÖBÍ (The Icelandic Disability Alliance), Iceland’s leading umbrella organisation advocating for the rights of people with disabilities.

The project will focus on developing inclusion guidelines and a training manual aimed at supporting the participation of young people with disabilities in esports. The goal is not to produce a purely theoretical document, but to create practical tools for those who organise activities, coach teams, support young players, or work in educational and youth settings.

The partnership brings together a wide range of expertise, including disability rights advocacy, esports federations, youth work, digital education, and the design of inclusive activities. This transnational dimension makes it possible to compare practices, needs, and approaches from different contexts, with the aim of developing accessible and transferable resources.

For Close in the Distance, the project represents a natural continuation of the work carried out over recent years in the fields of gaming, digital education, youth participation, and social inclusion.

The project "Sports for Everyone!" will develop and promote:

• Guidelines for the inclusion of young people with disabilities in esports, designed for coaches, organisations, youth workers, and professionals in the field;

• A training manual including practical tools, methodological guidance, examples, and good practices;

• Focus groups and data collection activities involving trainers, young people, practitioners, and stakeholders, in order to start from real needs rather than abstract assumptions;

• Training seminars for esports trainers, supporting the practical use of the guidelines;

• An inclusive demonstration tournament, designed to show how esports can become more accessible, participatory, and attentive to diversity;

• Dissemination and advocacy activities at local, national, and European level.
  
  For more information, visit our Instagram page, EPALE, our Blog, or contact us directly via the Contacts page or email us at direttivo@closeinthedistance.com.

The full title of the project is "Sports for Everyone! An International Erasmus+ Project for the Inclusion of Young People with Disabilities in Electronic Sports".
The project identification code is 2025-2-IS01-KA220-YOU-000380526.

Co-funded by the Erasmus+ Programme of the European Commission, it is an Erasmus+ KA220 project, Partnerships for Cooperation, in the field of Youth (YOU).
The project started on 1 April 2026 and will end on 31 May 2028, with a total duration of 26 months.

ÖBÍ, Rafíþróttasamband Íslands, Close in the Distance and SEUL ry have received EUR 100,000.00, corresponding to 40% of the total Erasmus+ co-funding, from Rannís, the Icelandic Erasmus+ National Agency, to launch the project activities.

Funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the European Education and Culture Executive Agency (EACEA). Neither the European Union nor EACEA can be held responsible for them.