Playing for peace
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COMMENTS 
A unique initiative for children in countries ravaged by war and communal conflict uses play to bring about an understanding of the differences between people
Play can play an important role in healing children caught in situations of conflict or war. Play for Peace (PfP), an initiative started in 1996 in Chicago by Michael Terrien and Craig Dobkin uses play to help reduce hostility among people. Vishwas Parchure, director global field operations at PfP says: "Co-operative play is a great leveller. People stop thinking about who is big or small. It creates a safe environment where nobody is threatened by another."
PfP's main objective is to minimise the suffering of children in countries ravaged by war or torn by communal conflict. It attempts to reduce hatred and animosity by engaging people in co-operative play. The organisation has regional hubs in Central America, India, the Middle East, North America, South Africa and Northern Ireland.
In India, Play for Peace has established alliances with the Confederation of Voluntary Associations (COVA) in Hyderabad, Movement for Alternatives and Youth Awareness (MAYA), Christel House School in Bangalore and Navjeet Community Health Centre in Mumbai. Also NGOs in Ahmedabad and, more recently, Pune.
PfP engages children in specific, non-competitive, collaborative games. In these games there are no winners or losers and no elimination rounds; skills are not tested, there are no scores. According to Parchure, PfP organises 30,000 children's play sessions every week across the country. In 2001, PfP facilitators and partner organisations in Hyderabad prevented communal conflict by forming a human chain around an angry mob in the old city of Hyderabad. The mob had gathered to protest a procession taken out by a Hindu fundamentalist group.
PfP's youth facilitators also visited an orphanage in Maharashtra's Raigarh district where local NGOs had adopted nearly 200 orphan victims of the Godhra carnage in Gujarat. The facilitators stayed at the orphanage for three months, organising play sessions with the children. According to a post-Godhra study by the National Institute of Mental Health and Neuropathic Sciences (NIMHANS), children who were associated with PfP recovered from their trauma more easily than other children did.
Fifteen-year-old Imroz, a youth facilitator at PfP from Hyderabad, believes that ordinary people can bring peace to the Indo-Pakistan border by playing together. "I want to go to the border and get the children and youth there to play with each other, so that they understand the meaning of living peacefully."
Youth facilitators are the backbone of PfP. Lead representatives, helped by local NGOs, motivate young people from a cross-section of the community, involving them in educational experiences and co-operative play. After the co-operative play, the insightful discussions and counter-discussions, the youth facilitators gradually begin to understand and accept differences within their community, reducing long-standing animosities. Youth facilitators work with younger children, aged between six and 12. All activities encourage laughter, compassion and connection at a time when, developmentally, young children form a sense of self, awareness of others and basic ideas about interactions with people they perceive as different.
These youth facilitators and community leaders collaborate to create a local plan of action, each addressing the needs of a distinct culture and community, including schools and youth groups. The lead representative who has guided the process until this stage introduces an on-site representative who lives within the community. This on-site representative serves as a mentor to help guide and train the community.
People from local organisations, many of whom have never collaborated before, plan how they should work together. Given their history of conflict, this is a crucial step. Together they form strategies to recruit community volunteers called adult co-ordinators. Guided by the on-site representative, adult co-ordinators are trained to recruit teenage youth facilitators who then engage the community's young.
Eminent leaders like the Dalai Lama and South Africa's Nelson Mandela believe that Play for Peace can teach children basic human values irrespective of their culture, race and beliefs.
Contact: Play for Peace
Gulmohar Appartments
81, Baradayini Society
Pashan-Sus Road
Pune- 21
Tel: (91-20) 25862245
Email:
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www.playforpeace.org
(InfoChange News and Features, March 2004)