HED: Goals for Peace: Youth Football Tournaments promote unity in Sudan

By: Holly Moody

***I will be speaking to players for this story and other personnel in the coming week. I am in the process of getting a translator to speak with the players.

For some athletes, medals are their drive to play their best game but for others message behind that game is their motivation to leave it all on the field.

The Olympic Games and World Cup are two events that continually prove that sport has the power to bring people of all parts of the world together in a peaceful coexistence.

Establishing peace and unity has been a goal of sports teams for centuries, outside of winning competitions, although in Sudan as youth football players in Sudan are not just playing for a win but, playing for peace between its communities.

Over the past year, AECOM International, a company that assists countries with programming, has been working in Sudan to put together peace and reconciliation football tournaments in conjunction with the ministry of youth, Tadamon locality, Sudan Football Union.

This year from September 15 to October 15 the first round of competition too place, youth from ten communities along the border of Sudan and South Sudan such as Brunei competed in the tournament. The second round took place between October 27 and November 5. The community of Buli ultimately won the tournament.

Over 100 male youth football players from various communities will participate in the tournament.

They were chosen by a six person committee and trained on peacefully coexistence and conflict, said Yusif.

Whether its social or political there are several issues that leave the communities of Sudan in a state of unrest. Nevertheless, the people feel that these problems need to be addressed.

I think Sudan is in a tricky situation. Darfur, and Brunei has many problems with central government. They have constant confrontation on what they need for Brunei, said Mauwi Yusif of Khartoum, an AECOM International contractor for Sudan employee whom worked on the project. The purpose of the tournaments is to bring people together to build a relationship. It gives people the opportunity to have conversation and work towards reconciliation. Last June, the competition brought in over 4,000 spectators from various regions in Sudan.

People are happy and are looking forward to the next year, they say that this wouldnt have happened ten years ago. The most exciting thing for me is to see people dancing together singing together and playing together, said Yusif.