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Where social justice and sports meet
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Click here if the link video above doesn't roll On Friday, April 8 we were involved in bringing coaches from Real Madrid to the Sunshine Coast, here in Australia, to coach some kids from troubled backgrounds. For free. It was a great gesture from the Real Madrid Foundation Clinics Australia group, who were already running some fee-based youth coaching clinics in the country. Some 60 boys and girls from around 7 up to about 16, were bussed up from Brisbane. Most of these were invited by Welcome to Australia, a local NGO working on settling refugees in Australia. A smaller number came from Harmony Place, a not for profit which assists refugee families dealing with trauma and mental health issues. We also invited some "local" players to come along and join in the afternoon friendlies, which we arranged for the afternoon, after the Real Madrid sessions in the morning. For us, it was a chance to test our wings and to see how we fly as an organisation. From our poi...
Part III of our series on how sports for development and peace works. EXAMPLE 3: SPORTS IS BASED ON SHARED RULES AND AGREED OUTCOMES It is one of the characteristics of war and many forms of violence that there is an absence of normal, commonly accepted rules. Sport offers an alternative to this. Being in a contained area which, while contested, is nevertheless bound by rules and conventions, and is adjudicated by a recognised and impartial referee goes some way towards ensuring that those used to, or who are seeking, a world without norms and without rules can be countered, both conceptually and literally. The similarities football, and some other sports, share with peace talks and other forms of dispute resolution are manifest. At another level, playing in a team with others with whom an individual might have been obliged to fight and or to hate, can provide ground on which mutual understanding and compassion can be gained. The most basic rule of football is that hand...
Pic: News24 Distressing news coming out regarding a lost generation of children, victims of the war in Syria. Human Rights Watch has released its report into Syrian refugees in Turkey and finds that as many as 400,000 Syrian children there have no access to education. This is in a context of virtual 100% primary school attendance in Syria pre-civil war and high levels of high school attendance as well as good scores on educational ratings, such as literacy. This is what war does. It may be easy to blame Turkey for this situation. But, this country has taken in around 2 million Syrians fleeing violence and a broken country. Rather than blame Turkey - and blame is not a word we like much here, anyway - maybe we should all look at what are we doing as individuals, and at what are our governments and the international bodies that represent us doing about this. This appears evidence that more needs to be done. It's not about blame, but about finding solutions.* We take a b...
The Kick Project board has now reached agreement with the Rohingya Football Club, Kuala Lumpur, to proceed with the following program. We are now formally raising funds for the following program, which we aim to begin in January 2016. Phase One: Part 1 Aim 1: Provide full playing kit for the current Rohingya Football Club (RFC) squad. This includes: shirts, shorts, socks, shin-pads, boots, goalkeeper equipment Aim 2: Fund a single playing space for football games. This includes paying fees on a designated municipal football field. Aim 3: Fund Transport. This includes purchasing or leasing a minivan. Part 2 Aim 1: To establish a “Ball Library”. This will be set up as a focal point for the RFC and also for the Rohingya community, with special focus on encouraging access for Rohingya children. Appropriate education initiatives (approved by both RFC representatives and The Kick Project via the Program Management Committee) may be conducted and/or...
The realisation of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), to follow the Millennium Development Goals, is one of those poster moments in global geo-politics. It seems the planet has finally come together to foster a beautiful world of lightness and love, safety and security. Of course, the reality is nothing like that. The world will likely go on its muddled and confused way, throwing up undeserving winners even as it it throws down innocent losers. That's not being cynical. It's just an acceptance of the human condition. Sure, humanity can be wonderful. But it can also be brutal. Those truths are unlikely to change. But, let's look on the up side. The balance can be shifted in favour of the more positive aspects and this is the value of documents such as the SDGs. That's where we come in. For us here at The Kick Project, the SDGs present a real opportunity to further ensure sport is in the tool box of solutions to poverty, conflict and community breakdown. ...
Well, the news hounds at The Kick Project have been out of the loop a little lately. But, after a break, Caught Our Eye is back. FIFA Presidential Race Gets Ever Murkier PROGRAM INFO Gaza: One Woman's Plea for Gaza to be Noticed Gaza:Children Forced to Work to Help Broken Families Rohingya in Malaysia: New Book Gives Children's View of Persecution REFUGEES Germany Calls for More EU Intakes as Refugee Influx Balloons-Critics Consider Walls FOOTBALL FOR PEACE US Tournament Brings Young People Together, Including Those from Areas of Conflict
Pic from Syria from frankborstart.com The UN has released some figures on its peace-keeping efforts worldwide. While the organisation does what it can, it is clear that it - the pre-eminent peace-keeping organisation in the world - is far from making even a scratch on the surface of global conflict. These figures confirm our reasons for being. There are 16 current conflicts the UN is working in around the world. The oldest is on the India-Pakistan border (in place since 1949), the newest in the central African republic (2014). Since 1948, there have been 71 UN peace-keeping operations and so, today, just under 23% of all the peace-keeping operations voted as necessary by the UN in 67 years are on-going. The UN says there are 125,396 peace-keepers in the UN's employ (so-called Blue Helmets). The budget for peace-keeping in 2014/15 is $US8.5 billion. It sounds a lot, but consider the following. The total armed personnel in just the top 20 militarised countri...
Pic: Vibe Celebrity and Aid US Criticised over Celebrity Aid Visit to Haiti Peace Bitter Enemies Reconcile in Ireland PR US Coal Company Using Ebola Crisis as PR Tool Gaza Project The Children of Gaza Need More than Aid (Our article for Crikey) Pic: Daily Telegraph Sport and Development The Power of Footy in Fiji Migration Australian Town Shows How Migration Works NGOs Govt Seeks to Punish Greenpeace for Reef Ad Campaign Crackdowns on NGOs Across Asia Are Human Rights NGOs "Too Establishment"?
Here's some of the news that got our attention recently: BORDERS AND PEOPLE: ANOTHER CELEB PITCHES IN TO HELP REFUGEES Pic: wallruru.com CRITIQUE OF ASYLUM SEEKER TREATMENT IN AUSTRALIA SOME SAY EU SHOULD EMULATE AUSTRALIA'S MODEL OTHERS ARGUE EU SHOULD DISMANTLE "VIRTUAL BORDERS" AND MAKE TRAVEL EASIER (COMMENT) Pic: urbantimes.co GAZA PROJECT: GAZA CHILDREN IN CRISIS INTERACTIVE MAP OF THE DESTRUCTION IN GAZA WELFARE OF CHILDREN: BOKO HARAM CAUSING HAVOC FOR CHILDREN SOCCER AND DEVELOPMENT: NEW PORTAL FOR PEACE AND SPORT EVENTS
Mark Bulpitt, Head of World Vision's Humanitarian Resilience Team said this recently, in a letter to the Financial Times newspaper; "Gaza is most worryingly suffering from invisible wounds inflicted on its children by the last conflict. Children are showing devastating signs of trauma. Almost all of those — 96 per cent — on our programmes need direct psychosocial support. Nearly a quarter (23 per cent) of them are suffering severe psychosocial issues. Three devastating wars have wrought havoc on children in Gaza, with more than 400,000 of them still in need of psychosocial care." Our program in Gaza is aimed at as many of these children as we can reach. Please assist us here . Thankyou!
Pic: Trevor Hogan via benswann.com The Kick Project has been on an enforced hiatus for a while. But we're back. And we've got plans. We've all seen what's been going on in Gaza. The kids in the picture above were playing soccer on the Gaza beach a month or so ago. There was another boy with them outside of frame. They were all killed moments after this photo was taken by direct Israeli rocket fire. Their names were Zacaria, Aahed Bakr Jr., Mohammed and Ismail. They were all from the same extended family. The IDF believed they may be Hamas operatives. They are among the hundreds of kids killed, and the thousands of children wounded, often horribly so. And they, perhaps, are the lucky ones, for their suffering is over. I was in Gaza myself in the early 1990's, and met many beautiful people there. I felt welcomed and very secure. Whatever the political context of what's going on there - I have my views on that for sure - the fact is that children and being ...