Try For Peace with Khelo Rugby

#TryForPeace - What's Peace All About?by Paul WalshIn 2013 we took part in our first ever Global Peace Games, we really enjoyed the experience. It was great that the children from Khelo Rugby in Calcutta were able to share an experience - virtually at least - with children in Pakistan and Afghanistan. You can read about this on the blog we published then: Scoring A Try For Peace.For this years event we wanted to make the experience more relevant for the children. While the UN Manifesto for Peace is spot on in terms of what it says we thought we needed to try to bring it down to a level the children could better relate to. This is the Manifesto of Peace:

RESPECT ALL LIFE REJECT ALL VIOLENCE SHARE WITH OTHERSLISTEN TO UNDERSTANDPRESERVE THE PLANETCONTRIBUTE TO THE DEVELOPMENT OF COMMUNITY

As I said it is all good stuff, but we were keen to make our message of Peace a bit more understandable for the children we work with. One cute little resource we found on the web was this poster:We were able to build our work around the messages in this and really relate it to the children's own experiences and importantly the experiences of the Coaches also - since it was the Coaches who were going to have to discuss Peace with their children.One of the things that came out of this were some touching stories from the Coaches about how the message of peace was interpreted and made much more relevant for the children. Here are a couple of the stories:Coach Ajay: "This was the first tournament the children of Chingrighatta had played in, they are a new Khelo Rugby community a little away from most of the others. On the day of the tournament the children all pleaded with me that they be allowed to play as their own team. We'd agreed in the run-up to the tournament that we would mix all the children up on the day so they got the chance to play with and make new friends. I think the Chingrighata children were a bit nervous about this and really didn't like the idea at all. Reluctantly they split up and all joined a different team. And how they enjoyed it! At the end they all came running over to me and said what a great time they'd had, how they had made new friends, how they had played better than they had ever played before and when was the next tournament! I was so happy with this and explained that this was what peace was all about, we needed to spend time with other people, share experiences with them like playing together so we weren't afraid of others and could all be good friends. This made me very happy."Coach Lovepreet: "One of the children from my Behala Khelo community, he was in the team that won the Bowl trophy on the day. Since all the children were mixed up we knew some children would be sad not to be able to take the trophies home. And this boy, who is a good player and has played in tournaments before was determined to hold onto the trophy and to take it home. One small girl from the Kolkata Port Trust Colony, I could see she was looking at the trophy and really wanted to hold it. It was the first time she had ever played, so it was extra special that she had been on a winning team. I asked the Behala boy, 'How many tournaments have you played?', 'How good is it to have the trophy?' He looked a bit shy and then I said, 'Imagine you were playing in your first tournament and you were able to take a trophy home to your family?' and pointed out the girl standing nearby. Quick as a flash he got my idea and walked over to the girl and handed her the trophy, telling her to take it back to show her family. Both of them were smiling from ear to ear and I thought, yes this is real peace when we show each other respect, share and can make a small sacrifice to support and encourage another."It would be great to hear from others with experience of working with children through sports and addressing 'Big Ticket' issues like Peace. I think we have really learnt a lot from our efforts this year and now better understand how important it is to make issues connect to the children we are working with. We know we engage with our children really well through our great sport of rugby, so we have their attention, just we also need to make our social messages as connecting and engaging.We now await our next Khelo Rugby event in Pakistan in the Fort Abbas community with the Desert Camel's very own Wazeeri in charge. One day soon we hope our Khelo children will not only get to look at their friends in other countries through a screen but be able to play together and learn a whole lot more.All the photos of the day's action - the children had a great time - can be seen on our Khelo Rugby Facebook Page and please do give it a 'LIKE' so you always know what is happening.Special thanks to:

• Global Rugby Collaborative for their super work in marking World Peace Day and getting us all involved.
• Play Soccer who inspired us to first get involved in the Global Peace Games.