Football 4 Peace International – Marking 20 Years
Dr Gary Stidder
by Dr Gary Stidder, Co-Founder and Deputy Director Football 4 Peace International, Principal Lecturer in Physical Education – University of Brighton, School of Sport and Service Management.
On 2 August 2021, Football 4 Peace International celebrates its 20th anniversary. Football 4 Peace International (F4P) has become a multi-dimensional research, education and social engagement platform that utilises physical education and sport innovatively to deliver generic and bespoke ‘values-based’ palliative training and coaching programmes designed in, and for areas suffering from high levels of cross-community conflict and various forms of political disorder and social disintegration.
The idea originated following discussions with Professor John Sugden, myself and the late Reverend Geoffrey Whitfield MBE, a retired Baptist Minister. Geoffrey had read John and Alan Bairner’s 1995 publication ‘Sport, Sectarianism and Society in a Divided Ireland’ and was inspired by the seminal work that John had orchestrated in Northern Ireland in the 1980s bringing together Catholic and Protestant children together through sport aptly named Belfast United.
F4P Israel 2012
In July 2001, Geoffrey and I along with six volunteer physical education students at the University of Brighton boarded a plane bound for Tel Aviv after twelve months of intensive planning. Leading up to the 2001 event there were significant and troublesome events happening in Israel during a time referred to as the second intifada (uprising) and the building of a wall that would separate Israel from Palestine. Many of my friends and family urged me to take caution and reconsider my intentions. Even my wife said that she did not want to be a widow before she was 40. The inaugural event was run over five days at the local sports stadium culminating in a World Cup style festival. On the way back to the airport, I felt as if I had been parachuted in and was about to airlifted out. Little did I know that I would be returning for the next twenty years! My own reflections of the past twenty years have brought back many positive memories, notably meeting an 18 year-old Arab volunteer called Shukri who was part of the Israeli delegation in the F4P Cologne training camp in 2008. Shukri had taken part as a child in the inaugural Football 4 Peace programme in Ibillin in 2001. He had remembered me when he was ten years old. Equally, meeting Abbas Suan, a Muslim Arab from the mixed community of Shaknin, and an International footballer for Israel inspired me to continue with my values-based approaching to teaching.
Professor John Sugden, Abbas Suan and Dr Gary Stidder
If anyone has seen the film ‘Field of Dreams’, you may remember a farmer who decides to build a baseball field on his Iowa corn farm much to the opposition of his wife and his bank manager. But, he hears strange voices in his head saying ‘If you build it, they will come’. Eventually, he builds the stadium and fills it to capacity. Anyone considering working in the area of sport for development and peace may wish to interpret this message as a calling into the world of education and teaching and have the confidence that anything is possible as long as you believe in yourself. Such has been the impact of my life-changing experiences in Israel and Palestine and other parts of the world along with the people I have had the privilege to meet and work with, my wife and I named our two children Oliver and Lily after Football 4 Peace for reasons that will not be difficult to find out on Google. After 20 years of working with F4P International, I still ask myself, ‘did I really do that’?
You can view some of the F4P documentaries on the links below:
Children of Jordan Valley documentary trailer
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nl5rTk9iuHI
Football 4 Peace 10 Year anniversary Trailer
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=haQH02U8GZw
Football 4 Peace International Values-based Teaching through Physical Education
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ai9HtcQ2OcA&index=7&list=PL9036FECA22DB89CD
Football 4 Peace Community Challenge Camp
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zw-J_y_TpS4&index=28&list=PL9036FECA22DB89CD
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d32r75bJF94&index=29&list=PL9036FECA22DB89CD
by Dr Gary Stidder
Aimee Myles • July 28, 2021
Graham Spacey July 29, 2021 - 2:24 pm
Long may it continue.
The University of Brighton have been an integral part of F4P since the start. It’s staff have given their time freely to run it and conduct research that has informed sport for development and peace globally. The programme has bought esteem to the University through the research excellence framework, awards and amazing student satisfaction scores. Continuing a long tradition in Eastbourne of philanthropy and social action, students have fundraised tirelessly to support partners in 11 countries on 3 continents to implement the values based methodology. Over 700 students and almost 1,000 coaches worldwide have taken what they have learnt from F4P and used the knowledge and skills within physical education and sport to positively impact the lives of children across the world beyond the project. Its philosophy is embedded into the values and ethos of physical education departments across the UK. The model and methodology had been cited in countless journals and replicated by other NGOs around the world.
It’s difficult to pursuade new university leaders as to the worth of projects like F4P. They look at things through spreadsheets, targets and count (not read) the number of book chapters and journal articles produced. Yet whilst the cost to the university is minimal and is mostly time and facilities in kind, the benefits to students, staff and the sport sector are massive.
F4P is intended to be a long term contribution to peaceful coexistence where change is generational and at multiple levels – individual, community, cultural and systemic.
F4P will survive without Sport and Exercise at Brighton but will continue to thrive with continued partnership with it – whether they lead or or not.
Israel, Jordan, Palestinian Occupied Territories, Northern Ireland, Ireland, England, Germany, The Gambia, South Africa, South Korea, Colombia.
The Israel Sports Authority, the British Council, The FA, Deutsch Sporthochschule, the Irish FA, the FA of Ireland, University of Johannesburg, Buen Punto Fundacion, Korean Sharing Movement, Run The Bases, Sandele Foundation, Gunjur Project.