Giving Peace a Sporting Chance-Communities for Peace Project

30 September, 2009
Serenaded by the cheers of hundreds of onlookers, a gang of lean boys are sprinting on a grassless playing field in Shanthai, a small village in Jaffna peninsula. It is a sunny day, with no wind in the air. But games held far more significance than the blazing sun for the large number of children who arrived at the field accompanied by their parents. Music pounds out from a make-shift marquee at one end of the playground. There is chatter everywhere as the players get ready to play. Every face wears a big lively smile. For them, the fact that they are playing together is all that matters. For a long time, due to the prolonged conflict in the region, opportunities for interaction within the community were limited and community gatherings became a rarity. However, with the support of Transitional Recovery Programme of UNDP, the dynamics have begun to change. The agency helped to plant the seed of peace and cohesion in Shanthai, and its roots are now spreading. Through a series of grants, UNDP helped Shanthai, which now has a population of around 450 families, to identify several events that could bring the residents together, and organise a sports festival with the support of every resident. Shanthai, a hamlet in Sandilipay DS Division, about 15 km from Jaffna town has been a fishing community for generations. The three-decade of civil conflict that plagued the region, and its consequences like limitations and restrictions at sea compelled the villagers to switch to other livelihoods. Now in Shanthai many people are casual day labourers, while others make their living through toddy tapping or raising livestock. In most families women too go for labour work to provide extra family support to balance the needs at home. Teenage marriages, heavy drinking, and fighting are quite common here. “If at all anything has made us to work together, it is this `grand’ community sports meet. For the first time we could personally feel the population strength of the village when we are present here in large numbers, it seems that there’s nothing that we cannot do together,” says Inthiran Elangeswaran (29) who says he wants to open a restaurant in the village soon. “There is great improvement adds Suhanthini Vasantharajah (26), a house wife. “It is more than a get together. In two decades, this is the first time we had a fun sports festival. Everyone’s interaction is nice.” H. Anton Mariyathas, who has been serving as the Principal over the past five years at Sittampalam Vidyalayam, the village school, is thrilled that it was the School Development Society that took the lead role in organizing the sports meet. He says that throughout the organising process he witnessed how the communities cleared various barriers prevailing among themselves and increased the total participation of everyone. “It was really astonishing to see the determination of men and women taking part actively in sporting events together with the youth.” “Sports helped pull the families together around a common cause. It was not the winning or losing but the great feeling of working as a team with good understanding. This would last long in our memory,” says S. Sivakumar, the President of the Shanthai Rural Development Society. UNDP’S COMMUNITIES FOR PEACE (C4P) project started with the concept that youth and especially school going children are the key to social transformation and peace-building. The project focuses on creating an ‘enabling environment for peace’ or in other words, working with youth and vulnerable groups by linking them through community events and fun activities as well as enabling better quality of living. The project funded by the Government of Australia, works with IDPs, returnees, host and other vulnerable communities and is active in 11districts in the North, East and South of the island.