MG2010 East: Right to Play
A nonprofit fundraiser supporting
Sports Humanitarian Group, Inc. dba Right To PlayThrough games and sports, Right To Play helps create social change in communities affected by war, poverty and disease.
$120
raised by 7 people
Sports for Development and Peace
Right To Play works in 23 of the most disadvantaged countries in the world . Over the last ten years Right To Play has worked with children in areas such as Pakistan where the trauma inflicted on children and entire families by civil conflict and displacements are not easily removed and require effort over a long period of time. By working with people living in camps for internally displaced persons, Right To Play provides children and families with hope, and equips them with skills to deal with their current difficult situation in the best possible way that they can.
Having established a reputation for positive results in the region, Right To Play was asked by Pakistan's Department of Education to offer activities to children after the conflict between the army and Taliban militants in May 2009 caused an influx of displaced persons from the Swat valley and the surrounding administrative district in the North-West Frontier Province . Right To Play is now offering sport and play activities to more than 2,500 children attending temporary schools in the camps in Mardan City. These children are learning important skills that help them deal with and overcome the trauma incurred by violence and conflict they were exposed to.
The programs are run by 16 Head Coaches, all of whom received training from Right To Play on "Understanding Psychosocial Support for Children". The training focuses on the concept of psychosocial support principles, psychological impact on children at different ages, vulnerabilities of children, ethics of working with children, communication tools as well as ways of dealing with secondary trauma and stress. The conditions at the temporary camps are difficult. Among other disadvantages, children lack proper playgrounds and are exposed to scorching heat. The children attending the temporary schools range in age from five to 15, and they have all experienced fear, physical pain and despair as they witnessed the acts of violence and death or hearing stories of conflict from family and friends. Their drawings often reflect their experiences and feelings of fear and violence. Some children, while playing, act out incidents of violence, while others are withdrawn, fearful and isolated. They are afraid of people who remind them in any way of the perpetrators of violence they witnessed and are made anxious by the sound of helicopters and other sudden or loud noises. In a culture where female sports are looked down upon, the female Coaches have been successful in advocating for girls' right to play . Rabia Akbar, a Coach working in one of the schools in the Mardan camp said, "When I started taking the girls out to play the Right To Play games, the men resisted and demanded from the school Principal that only girls between ages three and six years play outside. I was called in by the Principal about this and I asserted the right of these girls to play and proposed using a smaller, less conspicuous ground for their play. Later I was told that the men agreed to this compromise. I am happy to be working with the girls especially on issues of cleanliness and helping them overcome their fears and concerns related to conflict and displacement."