Children's sports for peace building

We got a number of reactions to our two columns (May 25 and June 1) on sports and character building. One was from our good friend, former PSC chairman, Dr. Perry Mequi, who is now the Dean of the College of Physical Education at the Foundation University (FU) in Dumaguete.

In a chapter I wrote several years ago in the UNESCO-sponsored book “Innovations in PE and Sports in Asia”, I mentioned the formation on July 7, 2007, of FU’s Institute of Youth Sports for Peace (IYSP), a brainchild of Mequi. I wrote that IYSPeace was conceived as an “experiment in peace-building through sports, the purpose of which is precisely to test the claim that sports could serve as a medium to promote peace – an abstract concept which could be best manifested through desirable social behavior and interaction among those who participate in sports. In this manner, participants in sports could serve as models of what Mequi calls good character.

IYSPeace contains the key words from which the FU experiment is anchored: Youth, Sports and Peace. The focus is therefore on youth with sports as the medium for development and peace as the ultimate objective.

The focus on youth is inspired by, among others, a quote from Mahatma Gandhi: “If we wish to create a lasting peace, we must begin with the children.” Pope John Paul II stated, during the Youth World Day of Peace Celebration in 2002, “I am thinking particularly of you, dear young people, who experience, in a special way, the blessing of life and have a duty not to waste it. In your schools and universities, in the workplace, in leisure and in sports, in all that you do, let yourself be guided by this constant thought: peace within you and peace around you, peace always, peace with everyone and peace for everyone.”

Article 31 of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child promulgated in December 1989, “recognizes the right of the child to rest and leisure, to engage in play and recreational activities”. Article 31 is often simply referred to as “Every Child has the Right to Play with the motto, “When Children Play, the World Wins.”

There is, however, a danger of abusing or putting much more into what these phrases and what the Convention means.

Certainly, the Convention does not endorse children being exposed prematurely to highly competitive sports at an early age to the extent of depriving them of their childhood and exposing them to near-child labor conditions. Thus, the saying “starting them young” has been abused. We must be careful in organizing children’s sports especially when adult attitudes of “win at all cost” and “win because we want to win the top prize” find their way into the child’s value system. Children (and even adults) must enjoy sport for its intrinsic value and not because of the material reward winning first place guarantees. Once those rewards are gone or are unobtainable, then sport loses its attraction to the child very early in his life.

Then UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, in support of the concept of sports for peace-building once said, the aim of the UN activities involving sports is not the creation of new sporting champions, and the development of sports heroes but rather, sports is to be used for broader development and peace-building.

Mequi says that realizing IYSPeace will thrive in an environment of shared values, the participants in a seminar held at IYSP’s inaugurals numbering 77, voluntarily signed a Sports Covenant which prescribes adherence to six values in the conduct of and participation in sports: no cheating, no violence, no substance abuse, respect for authority and rules of the game, friendship and camaraderie and care for Mother Earth.

Mequi thinks that the IYSP experiment is succeeding, four years after its establishment. In the recently-concluded Philippine National Games (PNG) held in Negros, the FU Team IYSP played the nationals for the futsal championship. The team won the silver medal and most of all, the coveted Fair Play Award.

The IYSP experiment, says Mequi, will continue with the support of the FU administration and the community. He anticipates that it will serve as a model that will continue to test the validity and faith of sportsmen such as Pierre de Coubertin (founder of the modern Olympic Games), who believed that sports can be the answer to mankind’s dream of lasting peace.

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Everything is all set for the grudge rematch scheduled between Mexican boxer Heriberto Ruiz and Rey “Boom Boom” Bautista on Saturday, June 11 at the Waterfront Cebu City Hotel. ALA Promotions is presenting the bout together with ABS-CBN. Bautista hopes to win to further boost a career that has been slowed down by a number of defeats.