In brief

The project utilises Frisbee, Baseball, Track and Field, Volleyball, Flag Football or Lacrosse to promote gender equity by empowering youth and developing education, employability, and mental strength skills with focus on increasing beneficiary enrolment and community outreach.

Problem to be tackled

Post genocide populations struggle with reconciliation, inability to communicate, lack of respect and trust, and harmful social, cultural and gender inequalities. In rural Rwanda and Cambodia, the residual effects of genocide are compounded by deep-rooted patriarchal gender roles. Harmful stereotypes prevent girls and women from developing the confidence and the leadership, education and employability skills needed to lead self-authoring lives and thrive in a male-dominated culture. In addition to the typical poverty-related challenges, community members lack healthy coping mechanisms to combat varying degrees of inter-generational trauma and mental health issues from the genocide and most recently COVID-19. Violence against women abounds, and the communities do not view girls as successful students, community leaders, or professionals and are also denied access to education and participation in social or physical activities.

Local partner

All sport for development programme sessions follow the same proven structure: coaches welcome and connect with participants during Informal Time. Opening Circle includes a warmup of the participants’ voices and bodies through dynamic stretches and a peer-to-peer connectivity activity. The Lead Coach introduces the sport, overarching lesson, and objective of the day. Next is the period of Intentional Learning Activities that 1) helps to improve skill competence-confidence through drills/games, 2) integrates a Play Fair personal development skill into the sport drills/games, and scrimmage such as, communication, conflict resolution, teamwork, perseverance, etc. and 3) promotes gender equity by; working in mixed gender pairs-teams, incorporating fair play rules, and ensuring contributions made by all. During Team Time, coaches help youth transfer-connect the lesson from sport into life through small group discussions, art, and teamwork activities. In Closing Circle, youth warm down and share how they will take the lesson/skills learned and start to practice applying or sharing them with others outside the programme.

Beneficiaries

New participants entering the programmes will be youth ages seven and eight years old who are attending one of the partner schools. Participants should be within a range of academic performance; 40% of level A students (100-80%), 40% of level B students (79-60%), 20% of level C students (below 59%). Participants should also have a general interest in sports, live within a safe walking distance of the programme location, and parents must allow them to attend the programmes. Lastly, participants must maintain a minimum of 60% attendance at school to be in the programme.

SOL’s contribution

With a support from The SOL Foundation, Kids Play International will be able to increase beneficiary enrolment in the programmes and engagement in the local communities and reach outside the communities in Rwanda and Cambodia through a) using sport to improve personal development skills and gender equitable behaviours so youth can reach higher levels of education and employment; b) transferring more local ownership through trainings that build capacity of the local staff and coaches, c) providing career pathways for KPI Alumni to become “Champions in Life”; and d) developing more gender equitable and healthy families and communities using sport as a tool to teach.

Project partner