Empowering Youth and Saving Children's Dreams in Somalia Through Sport

Within the Sport for Development and Peace (SDP) Initiative, led by Qatar Charity and Qatar Fund For Development (QFFD), Save the Dream, has launched a project in Somalia specifically in Garowe, Puntland. The project focuses on the use of sport and the power of its values to

promote peace, reconciliation, preventing and countering violent extremism, education and empowerment of youth, women, and girls, inclusion of persons with disabilities and vulnerable groups and fostering social cohesion and harmony.

Main Objectives:

1. Enhance local capacity to use sport as a tool for social transformation with a focus on intercultural dialogue, equality, conflict resolution, preventing and countering violent extremism.
2. Provide extensive training and technical capacity as well as create and develop innovative educational tools for the participants to implement sport for peace and development projects in their communities.
3. Enhance social inclusion and promote gender equality and empower girls to participate in social change.
4. Empower and strengthen capacities of grassroot organizations that use sport to promote development and peace in the communities by providing them with capacity building, mentoring, support, and visibility.
5. Raise awareness on the power of sport as a tool to foster peaceful and inclusive societies.

Main Outcomes:

1. Identified local agents of change including sport coaches, educators, role models in sport and youth leaders are trained to become the official and certified Trainers of the project.
2. Identified schools, sport, and grassroots organizations in Garowe are equipped in terms of sport materials and educational approaches within the framework of pilot initiatives to promote safe access to sport and its values to schoolchildren, street children, young IDPs and other underprivileged children.
3. Identified teachers, educators, coaches, operators, and volunteers are connected through a common digital platform to facilitate access to and exchange of information, synergies, and forms of mutual assistance in the long term.
4. Awareness is raised locally, nationally, and internationally on the role of sport in the field of development and peace.

Planned Activities and Interventions

Phase 1: November 2022 – February 2023:

The first round of programme is aimed at preparing the local trainers to take leadership actions for SDP initiatives through the following activities:

1. Train the Trainer (TTT): Select sport coaches, educators, role models, and youth leaders in sports and provide training to prepare them as agents of change and implement sport for peace and development activities in their respective communities and schools.
2. Field Training in Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) Camp and Schools: As part of the TTT programme, the participants are expected to receive practical lessons on implementing sport festivals, clinics and tournaments at the community level.
3. Organizing football and basketball tournaments: As part of the TTT programme, the participants with the support of experts from Save the Dream organize three-week-long sport clinics and tournaments for children from local schools. This will provide an opportunity to gain experience and utilize the tools and resources to implement community sport programmes.

Phase 2: February – March 2023:

The second round of activities aims at preparing up to 50 stakeholders to implement SDP initiatives through schools and communities.

1. Advanced SDP Capacity Building Programme for Educators: Selected participants such asphysical education teachers, schoolteachers, community development actors, representatives from municipalities, sport and educational institutions and federations, universities, NGOs, and youth leaders, will be trained to implement SDP projects in their respective environments.
2. Sport Clinics and Tournaments Within Schools and Communities: As a part of the Capacity Building Programme, participants are expected to organize sport clinics and tournaments in schools and communities. The project will provide materials to the organizations represented by the 50 participants and help these later in the organization of clinics and practical exercises and include such activities in their present and future educational programmes.
3. ‘Save the Dream Festival’ at the community level to be participated in by local and national/international sport celebrities, community and religious leaders, and officials from government and partnering organizations.

• Finals of Save the Dream Cup and organize sport activities and friendly matches for children and youth in different categories among various ethnic and cultural groups in Garowe.
• Exhibition of traditional and ethnic sport practices by different communities.
• Cultural activities by local talents
• Advocacy and awareness activities