At 25, Chloé O’Dwyer had done a lot of things right. Finished her undergraduate degree in Product Design, landed her first engineering job, moved back home to rural Ireland – partly by choice, partly because rent in the city had made it impossible – then left that job to start a PhD. In the space of a year, life had shifted so many times she had stopped being sure where she was going.
Sport had always been the constant. Growing up in the Irish countryside, it was simply part of the fabric -summers in the garden, training with friends on local fields, joining the GAA club at 12 so she’d have familiar faces when she started secondary school. Hurling, camogie, Gaelic football, soccer – sport was how she met people, built confidence, and learned what hard work felt like. Her dad coached. Her sister played alongside her. It was never just a hobby. It was how she belonged.
But somewhere in the middle of all that change, she had drifted from it. Not entirely – but enough to notice.
The Lightbulb Moment
Moving back home meant rejoining her local soccer team. Old faces. Some new ones. And slowly, the realisation that what she had been missing wasn’t any one thing – it was the feeling of being part of a club, a sport, a community. “I had slightly lost sight of what I loved doing,” she says.
When she came across the REACH project, it clicked immediately.
It was like a lightbulb moment. I knew this was my chance to get back involved in sporting volunteer opportunities, and ultimately give back to my community that has looked after me for so many years.
REACH, funded by the European Union, is an initiative designed to empower young people across Europe and beyond by increasing their participation in volunteer, leadership, and decision-making roles within the Sport for All movement. For Chloé, that meant co-hosting a Sport for All Expo Day at the University of Limerick – her first real step into sport leadership beyond competing and showing up.
A Whirlwind of Unexpected Things
What followed wasn’t what she had expected. Online webinars connected her with peers across Europe and beyond – Canada, Japan, Morocco. In-person training took her to France and the Czech Republic. The skills she built – project management, communication, physical literacy, leadership – turned out to be as useful for her PhD as they were for the Expo Day itself.
But the thing that surprised her most wasn’t professional. It was personal. “I didn’t expect to make the friendships and memories that I made.”
That’s the thread running through Chloé’s story – sport as a way back to people, to community, and to yourself. The REACH project didn’t give her a new direction so much as it reminded her of the one she already had, and gave her the tools and the people to pursue it with more confidence.
Still Showing Up
When the European Sport for All Games came to Limerick in August 2026, Chloé was there – volunteering with Limerick Sports Partnership, the connection she had made through REACH still very much alive. “Thanks to them, they have kept the door that REACH opened for me, open.”
She is still a PhD student. Still a soccer player. Still someone who believes, deeply and simply, in what sport does for people. Her takeaway from the whole experience is characteristically straightforward:
Everyone has something to bring to the table – you just have to be willing to give them a chance to show you.
And for anyone hesitating to take a chance like this?
You will miss all the chances you never take.
SUCCEED Series: Stories of Impact
This story is featured as part of SUCCEED Stories, through the SUCCEED Framework. SUCCEED (Supporting Communities Empowerment & Development through Sport for All) is a global framework dedicated to fostering community empowerment and development through capacity building in Sport for All. Led by TAFISA in collaboration with the IOC through its Olympism365 strategy, SUCCEED aims to provide a unified and synergistic approach towards building the capacity of Sport for All stakeholders.