International Learning on the Power of Sport to Build Peaceful Communities
Gareth Harper (Managing Director of PeacePlayers NI) and Sally Nnamani (Co Executive Director, PeacePlayers USA) tell the story of international learning and the power of sport to build more peaceful communities:
Gareth begins,
‘I've been the Managing Director with PeacePlayers in Northern Ireland for 15 years, but PeacePlayers journey in Northern Ireland began in 2002, when two American brothers, Brendan and Sean Touhey from Washington DC, came to Ireland. They visited Belfast and thought about how basketball, the sport they were passionate about, could help resolve some of the issues in Northern Ireland.
My job was to take what was an American programme and ‘Northern-Ireland-ify’ it, but we didn't throw the US experience out of the window. A big part of the programme was having visiting US Fellows and international input on an ongoing basis. This grew further, when we hosted Fellows from South Africa and other sites around the world.
We offered a cool basketball programme, but sport and basketball is just the hook, not the end game, which is to create a more peaceful and prosperous Northern Ireland.
Sally explains,
‘I had the privilege to live in Northern Ireland for two years, but as a child I got to witness this whole idea of the power of sport in bringing people together. I was born in Nigeria and whenever our Super Eagles football team played, you saw people from very different ethnic groups and religious backgrounds band together to support our football team on the world stage. My family moved to the States when I was 12 years old and I grew up in a very small town just north of New York. We were the only immigrant families there. Again, sport became the place where I made friends and really immersed myself in my newfound community. It was the platform that opened up opportunities and possibilities for me. My interests were always basketball and being an athlete, and I was also very passionate about history and international affairs. I met some people who had worked with PeacePlayers and I had the chance to learn about their experience. I decided to apply for the fellowship programme.
When I came to Northern Ireland, it was my coming of age experience. It was the first time I was living away from my family and the first time I really trusted myself to step out of my comfort zone in so many ways.
I was able to see sports and peace building in action and to experience and lead programming in the South Belfast community and in rural parts of the country. I saw the strides that have been made but also the challenges that still remain, and how sport was really playing an integral role in engaging young people from Protestant and Catholic backgrounds.
South Belfast is very diverse and we had young people from parts of Africa and from Asia. I thought it was so special to be able to celebrate this growing diversity in a country that had been racially homogenous for a long time. I experienced the role of sport in creating the space for those young people to feel included and feel like they are part of their new community. It was very similar to how I felt when my family first moved to the US.
When I was getting ready to move back Gareth said PeacePlayers was starting to work in the US, and I should consider it. I had a couple of conversations with our global team and it made a lot of sense. When I took up the role in Brooklyn, I was working with young people who had grown up in incredibly disadvantaged circumstances, where for many of them sport is therapy. They live in neighbourhoods with gun and gang violence where sport can be a tool to create safe spaces, and to invest in their leadership potential and agency to want to make a difference in their communities.
We’ve been really privileged. We've got sister sites that have built programmes from scratch and we can lean on their experiences, their failures, their success and their expertise, to inform what we're trying to build in the US. In many ways it expedited our growth. For example, we knew very early on that we wanted local leadership for the programmes to be sustainable. We wanted to bring on people who have lived experiences and who grew up in the communities we're seeking to work in.
Other learnings from Northern Ireland were the engagement of institutions, working within the schools and doing after school programming, engaging local recreation centres and thinking about how to scale our work, such as aligning our core priorities with the city government within a certain community.
Our work in Northern Ireland and places like the Middle East and South Africa has the foundation of using sport to bridge divides and develop young leaders. We've taken that model and adapted it to the US context. We know there are systemic challenges that limit opportunities for young people, depending on where you're born, and so our work in the US is centred on using sport to create equitable opportunities for young people, investing in their leadership potential and creating safe and enabling environments for them to practice leadership.
Gareth adds,
‘Sport is now very much on the radar and is increasingly recognized as a really effective tool for peace building and conflict transformation work. When I first started with PeacePlayers, there were questions about kids playing basketball but it's so much more than that. Now we have really robust monitoring and evaluation processes and procedures in place to prove that what we're doing is actually having an impact on young people, helping to improve attitudes, change perceptions and bridge divides. I think further acknowledging and fully realising the potential of that is really important.
Our ideal model is that we have kids who join the programme when they’re nine-year-olds in primary school and they're back coaching with us when they're 25-year-olds. That leadership progression and constant investment is really important going forward. For the future, it's building on that momentum and creating a progression route, but also thinking about what we are doing here locally in Northern Ireland that we can export to help to develop programmes elsewhere.
Sally continues,
‘Our work is centred around the core values of seeing humanity in others. We're living in a world that's becoming increasingly more polarized and divided. We need to be creative in ways of bringing people together to see the humanity in others. Northern Ireland has made significant strides when you compare the legacy of the Troubles and how both sides are willing to come to the table and make concessions. Granted, there is still a way to go, but there's so much to be learned. When you look at conflicts in other parts of the world you can see we are very similar. We have similar fears and differences and goals. I think that's where sport is such a natural tool, to continue to invest in.
People in other parts of the world should see what's really worked well in Northern Ireland.
Gareth concludes,
‘Who doesn't want to support kids playing sports together and learning together? Building friendships, learning how to see people as people rather than a stereotype. I think that's really important and sport has the potential to elevate this to the next level and to challenge people to say, ‘Why wouldn't you want more of this?’
Our young people are asking my generation to create a space where they can fully realise the potential of this place. PeacePlayers has always been about showing what's possible and showing leadership by our young people in Northern Ireland around the world.’
Themes: Youth, Education, Leadership, Sport, International