Olympic Doves: Promoting Peace through Sports
“On the first day I hated it and wanted to go home. By the second day, I thought it wasn’t so bad. By the third and fourth days, I was having fun. I spent most of the fifth day trying to hide my tears as I knew I would be separated from my new Turkish Cypriot friends and I didn’t know when I’d see them again.”
This is what a young Greek Cypriot boy told a reporter who followed the Doves Olympic Movement Summer Camp that took place in the mountains of Cyprus from July 30 through August 4, 2005. The Camp is based on the philosophy and principles of the Olympic Movement, and was organized by the Center for Leisure Tourism and Sport, Research and Development at Intercollege in Cyprus with funding from USAID through the UNDP-executed Bicommunal Development Program. The camp had 96 children participate—half Turkish Cypriot and half Greek Cypriot. They ranged in age from 13 to 16 years old. The instructors, also Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot, were professionals in sports, education or technology.
 |
| Participants of the 2005 Doves Olympic Movement Summer Camp |
Before the camp began, the instructors spent two months attending training seminars to better prepare them. The main focus was the use of sports towards educational objectives. Some of the themes of the seminars included, Essential Features of a Good Learning Environment and Cultivating a Connected and Caring Community. The instructors also participated in conflict resolution activities to help them to better work together and set a positive example for the participants of the camp. They held two meetings with the parents of the participants to answer any questions they had and address their concerns.
The goal of the camp is to promote acceptance, tolerance and friendship between Greek-Cypriot and Turkish-Cypriot children in a country that has been divided for over thirty years. The organizers of the camp recognize that the separation of the two communities fosters mistrust and fear. For many of the participants, this was their first opportunity to get to know someone from the other community. By bringing the two communities together, they worked to erase commonly held misconceptions and foster trust, respect and understanding. The goals were to develop “a better understanding for each other’s needs, inter-ethnic tolerance and acceptance, friendships among members of both communities and patterns of working together in the pursuit of common goals.” Judging from the opening quote by one of the participants, it seems that they were a success! The organizers hope to have the camp operating on a year-round basis in the future.
Back to Top ^
|
