Sports Programs
Athletic competitions and running events bring together people of diverse backgrounds to promote good sportsmanship and build friendship and good will. For suggestions about how to organize a one-day community sports event, click here.
- Written by: John Gehring
Nairobi, Kenya - Following a series of sports tournaments in martial arts, hockey, and football, organizer John Gehring spoke to the International Leadership Seminar (ILC) in Nairobi on the how athletic programs can help promote peace.
- Written by: Wang Zhijun, International Educational Foundation, Beijing, China
The importance of character education and family culture are manifest in pre-Olympic civic education campaigns in China. Two women’s organizations jointly sponsor women professors lecturing in the main districts of Beijing. One is the Beijing Municipal Women’s Federation and the other the Women’s Sub-committee of the Beijing Committee of China Democratic League, which is comprised mainly of intellectuals.
- Written by: Emmanuel Bauer
Seebenthstein, Austria - The European football team EuroPhoenix came together for a football workshop in Seebenstein, Austria. In total, 35 young adults gathered in the seminar center from July 19 to 24, 2008.
- Written by: UPF - Guatemala
Tierra Nueva, Guatemala - More than 200 children participated in a special sports activity led by two sports educators, Diesa Seidel and Janna Gullery, as well as by Mr. Luis Navarro, coordinator of Moving Dreams, a project of Pro Paz. This took place in the Settlement Tierra Nueva 1 in Guatemala.
- Written by: Peace Queen Cup
With a 92-minute goal, the US women's soccer [football] team defeated Canada to win the Peace Queen Cup on June 21. The finalists and their scores were the same as in the inaugural tournament in 2006.
- Written by: John Gehring and Jason Sue
UPF offers various sports programs in promotion of peace in support of the UN Year of Sports and Physical Education.
- Written by: Marty
Play Football, Make Peace has run pilot programs for young people in Gaza, Israel and Jordan. The power of sports to bring down borders was shown when young people from the separate areas of Gaza had a unique chance to meet each other and compete through a Play Soccer [Football] Make Peace tournament.
- Written by: John Gehring, Interreligious Peace Sports Festival
More than 700 students from four middle schools in Israel took part in a Dec. 1-6, 2007 interreligious program in the Haifa region of Carmel that promoted friendship and good sportsmanship..
- Written by: Simon Kinney
In contradiction to the idea that Iraq is permanently mired in religiously-based violence, a soccer team of Iraqi refugees living in Amman, Jordan, proved that faith is not an enemy to peace.
- Written by: Kiev Chesney, Stabroek News
Guyanan national junior 100 and 200-metre sprinter, Goddis Accra, returned home Thursday after winning the 200m and placing second in the 100m at the annual Inter-Religious Peace Sports festival in South Korea.
- Written by: Interreligious Peace Sports Festival
On July 6, 2007, the Interreligious Peace and Sports Festival (IPSF) presented a concert in the recently completed cultural center at Sun Moon University in Asan, Korea.
- Written by: Kate Tsubata, Interreligious Peace Sports Festival
The 2007 International and Interreligious Peace Sports Festival brought together more than 1,240 participants from some 67 nations and 10 major religions, each with certain dietary laws and daily observances. Held at the spacious Sun Moon University in Asan, South Korea, the IPSF incorporates practical ways to honor the participants' faith teachings into every aspect of the conference.