Skip to main content

How Sport For Development and Peace Works (Pt 1)

Pic: abc.net.au
Some of us from The Kick Project team were in a meeting with potential partners recently, when we were asked a question about “Proof of Concept” of sport for development and peace. The context of the question was that we were talking about sport for development and peace - especially football - but we weren't putting the pieces together. As she said, “It's all good. But I don't see how this works. How does sport and football generate peace and development? What's the proof of concept?”

It made us think: it can be easy when you're working away on your stuff to lose touch of your context. In this case, this person was someone who wrote grant applications. She wanted to know how she would sell our concept to attract funding. Completely fair enough.

So, we (hopefully) addressed her concerns at the time and took her concern on notice for next time we spoke. Debriefing afterwards, we realised there may be others out there who don't quite see the links between sport and peace and development. We agreed we need to work harder on contextualising what we do.

As a means of doing this, over the next 5 days we'll outline the top 5 ways sport works positively on peace and development, as we see it.

Today, it's how sport brings people together.

EXAMPLE 1: IT BRINGS PEOPLE TOGETHER

“Sport is a social glue,” says anthropologist Dr. Gerhard Hoffstaeder, in our promotional video for The Rohingya Football Club.

As he puts it, sport for those living as refugees or as newly arrived migrants helps to provide a space for people from similar communities to get together in a light and informal manner.

In new environments, new arrivals may not have established a safe space to interact, such as a club facility, cafe, markets or even an extended family, as they may have had back home. Sport draws people together and offers a common activity – watching and/or playing – and is centred on an activity that is easily set-up and set-down and needs little personal investment to be involved.

Also, sport provides a means for new, disadvantaged or marginalised communities to reach outside of their own confines and establish links to other communities. In cases of refugees new to a host country or in situations of conflict (pre-, existing and post-) sport therefore has within it the means – we might say a reason or an excuse – to get together despite existing barriers and to share something that is both fun and socially engaging.

In conflict scenarios, sport offers a common ground which while competitive, is shared and agreed upon. Sporting activity between rival groups can, when well-structured and intentional, provide a kind of middle ground where differences can be overcome, tensions dissipated and disputes - hopefully - curtailed.

More on how sport for development and peace works in the coming days.


Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Post-UNOSDP - Is the IOC fool's gold?

This is a longer version of an article published on SportandDev.org With the United Nations Office on Sport for Development and Peace closed down by the global body, there is undoubtedly a void in this space in which many of us here work. But, for all the high profile oomph the UNOSDP added to the world of sport for good, it’s passing need not be seen as devastating. For one, the work the UNOSDP has already done in its 16 years of life has laid a platform for the development of sport for social justice. While many of us knew for years that sport had a wider purpose beyond mere business or entertainment, the UNOSDP has provided a base of credibility that may have otherwise taken much longer to establish. While much of the work is, in many ways, still to be done, the UNOSDP has left a positive legacy on which we can all build. More problematic is the shifting of the UNOSDP’s brief to the IOC. Obliging the IOC to administer to the peace and development facets ...
2 comments
Read more

Statement on Funding for the Rohingya Football Club

We are very pleased to announce that The Kick Project has received a $AUD16,500 donation from the Australian Government to fund a pilot soccer program with Rohingya refugees in Malaysia. The funds, coming through the Australian High Commission in Malaysia, will allow the charity to support the Rohingya Football Club which has become a vital part of the exiled Rohingya community in Kuala Lumpur. The program entails kitting out the team, providing transport to games and establishing a sports and community hub where Rohingya people can access sporting equipment and coaching. Young people, and girls in particular, are the long term focus of the initiative. The Kick Project founder James Rose says the Rohingya are in dire need of assistance. "The UN has called the Rohingya arguably the most persecuted group in the world. They've been forced to flee their homelands in Myanmar, where they have been made stateless by government decree, and many have lost their lives...
4 comments
Read more

Gaza Update

One year on from the escalation of violence in Gaza and things are still looking very sour.  A news quote from Save the Children CEO Paul Ronalds is pertinent: "Save the Children is urging Australia and other nations to use their diplomatic influence to promote the lifting of the blockade to allow the entry of essential humanitarian aid and enable the rebuilding of homes and schools, and support a return to some level of normality for the many distressed children in Gaza.” The Kick Project is still working hard to take a program to Gaza. But, these plans have been re-scheduled for various reasons. Mainly, the program has proved to be a little more complicated than we had anticipated and we have re-focussed on plans for our Rohingya program in Malaysia. We feel that at this early stage of our development as a not for profit organisation we need to build more critical mass in our funding and our management infrastructure before launching into Gaza. We are wary of wast...
Post a Comment
Read more