Getting kids active
What to know
Nike invests in play and sport for all kids, because an active next generation means a healthier and more equitable future.
With ChildFund Korea and We Meet Up Sports, Nike created Active Modoo, which offers fun, physical activities to kids and provides positive coaching skills to coaches and teachers across Seoul.
An active lifestyle today helps kids reach their full potential tomorrow. Made to Play is Nike's global initiative to get kids moving, especially girls and kids from marginalised communities. We work with more than 100 global organisations to help give all kids the opportunity to access and benefit from play and sport, increase girls' participation and train more coaches.
We're also creating resources to equip coaches and other caring adults with the tools to make sport fun for kids. In 2022, we shared our best practices and tools with more than 17,000 coaches and we helped directly train more than 9,000 of them. Knowing that access to the right apparel and equipment can be a barrier to sport for many girls, we've donated 75,000 Nike Swoosh sports bras and 3,000 Nike Pro hijabs through our community partners to girls around the world.
Together with ChildFund Korea and We Meet Up Sports, Nike created Active Modoo. The programme gets its name from its aim to help "modoo", meaning "everyone" in Korean, to get active. Active Modoo offers fun, physical activities to kids aged 8 to 13 and provides positive coaching skills to coaches and teachers at schools and in communities across Seoul.
Because sport is a form of self-expression, America SCORES New York (ASNY) provides after-school programmes that combine football, poetry and service learning to promote fair play, commitment and teamwork. Nike and ASNY partner on the Coaching for Change Academy, a programme that offers 20 change-makers the tools they need to become the next generation of young coaches and mentors.
Run in partnership with the International Rescue Committee Deutschland and buntkicktgut, Berlin Kickt combines the universal language of football with social and emotional skills lessons for 150 kids from under-served areas in Berlin, many of whom have a migrant or refugee background.
The Boundless Girls programme is a collaboration between Nike and the China Youth Development Foundation focused on unlocking barriers to sport participation and reimagining sport for girls in China. Since 2019, the programme has helped 20,000 girls across more than 223 schools to realise their potential by providing gender-inclusive training, inclusive programmes and support for teachers. A key pillar of the programme's evolution is the involvement of university students who will be trained as coaches to help girls in the programme dream bigger and realise their potential.
Nike is a founding member of the Center for Healing and Justice Through Sport (CHJS). We invest in its research-backed, inclusive and healing-centred coach training for our own Nike Community Ambassadors and Made to Play non-profit partners, as well as for training staff and coaches at schools and other non-profit organisations across the US.
To give under-represented girls in London more access to play and sport, Nike worked with Girls United to create "Love the Game". Through weekly football sessions, match days and active workshops that showcase female role models for both girls and boys, the programme strives to create a deep-rooted love for sport from an early age and a more gender-equal society on and off the pitch.
Nike worked with ICOACHKIDS to create an accessible, approachable series of coaching essentials that preps anyone to be a volunteer youth coach. The ICOACHKIDS coaching essentials are free and available through the ICOACHKIDS website and on the Nike Training Club App and Nike Run Club App in Europe, the Middle East and Africa.
Building on its long-standing programmes for girls in Mexico City—and because too many of them are still being left on the sidelines—Nike has worked with Laureus Sport for Good to create Jugamos Juntas. The programme gives girls access to safe, inclusive and fun play and sport experiences and will recruit and train coaches, especially women, to help them create positive environments where girls and boys play and thrive together.
Together with tennis champion Naomi Osaka and Laureus Sport for Good, Nike created Play Academy, an initiative that aims to change girls' lives through play and sport. Play Academy, which originally launched in Tokyo and expanded to Los Angeles, Haiti and Osaka, Japan, provides grants and capacity-building training for existing grassroots organisations.
PLAY International's school-based programme empowers teachers and coaches in tens of schools across Paris to build active classrooms, benefiting thousands of kids. Nike also supported PLAY International's Playlab, a 12-month collaborative incubator with five grassroots organisations. Their "5 Golden Rules" have transformed existing games and created new ones to help increase girls' participation in play and sport.
Students Run LA (SRLA) helps give more than 3,200 young people of all backgrounds and abilities from 185 public schools across greater LA an opportunity to experience the benefits of training for—and completing—the Los Angeles Marathon. Nike supports the group every step of the way by training their coaches and outfitting each SRLA runner with performance apparel and shoes to boost their confidence and comfort from start to finish.