Sports have a fundamental human appeal. They can connect people across cultures, religions, nationalities, languages, and other divides. When people participate in sporting activities, they learn to respect the dignity of their opponents, the values of teamwork and tolerance, and the importance of fair play and regulations. Sports can, in a few words, be an important tool for peacebuilding and reconciliation. In this light, WPDI designed the Peace Through Sports program as a vehicle for young women and men to practice values of mutual respect, inclusion, and fair play while entertaining themselves.
Bringing Youths Together from Diverse Backgrounds
The Peace Through Sports program originated from a visit Forest Whitaker made to a UN Protection of Civilians (PoC) site in Juba, South Sudan (the PoC III). Many young people in the camp were growing restless and engaging in destructive behavior due to a lack of structure and purpose. Moreover, feelings of hate and revenge were festering. Forest came up with Peace Through Sports as a way to give camp residents a constructive outlet for their energy while also offering a safe space to learn essential values and address their traumas.
The idea for the Peace Through Sports program came to Forest Whitaker when he visited a camp for internally displaced persons (IDPs) in South Sudan in 2014. The children and youths he saw there were left to themselves and their traumas, with few outlets other than their dreams of exacting vengeance from whomever had brought this calamity on them. Seeking to offer them psychosocial support while educating them on peace, Mr. Whitaker recognized that sports was, with its values of cooperation, tolerance and respect for rules, a perfect vehicle to cultivate values of peace in a way that would entertain and motivate children and youths.
Combining sports activities – weekly practice and games – with peacebuilding workshops and conferences, Peace Through Sports has proved very effective for disseminating positive values among young people from contexts of conflict, violence or fragility. This is obtained through the patient work of our trained coaches and experts who get, among others, individuals from conflicting groups and tribes to play together and learn from and on each other. The program also proved its worth for empowering girls and female adolescents in contexts where traditional norms often keep them behind the walls of their homes.
