PERES CENTER AND ISRAEL FA PARTNER ON PEACEBUILDING PROGRAM
May 17, 2019
The Israel Football Association (IFA) and the Peres Center for Peace and Innovation signed an agreement on Monday to collaborate on a unique nationwide project which will build connections between Jewish and Arab boys and girls through soccer.
The “Playing Fair, Leading Peace” initiative will work with schools from across the country, providing cross-cultural peace education, including playing soccer with Jewish and Arab people on the same team and learning both Hebrew and Arabic.
In keeping with the Peres Center’s “FairPlay” methodology, mixed teams play without a referee, determine the rules of the game together and jointly resolve any disagreements that occur during the game.
Backed by the National Union of Israeli Students and the London-based Laureus Sport for Good Foundation, 17 students will join a sports leadership program to equip them with the necessary skills to lead the new project.
“Sport represents a brilliant platform for shared existence, building values and a better, fairer society,” said Chemi Peres, Chairman of the Board of Directors at the Peres Center.
“For many years, we have organized soccer matches between Jews and Arabs, and [between] Israelis and our neighbors. There are many places in the world that are adopting our model of shared existence and problem-solving,” he said.
The Peres Center has been bridging obstacles of language, politics and religion through sports for more than 17 years. Its “Twinned Peace Sports Schools” initiative has reached over 22,000 Palestinian and Israeli – both Jewish and Arab – boys and girls since its establishment.
“This project integrates the embrace of all parts of the community that we want to see, and it’s the project that you see in all the Israeli national teams today,” said IFA chairman Moshe Shino Zuarez.
“This project is how we wish to see co-existence – working with children and bringing everyone together. That’s our objective at the end of the day: to make the future of all these children better.”
The Peres Center also announced that it has been selected for a second time to receive FIFA Foundation funding.
The foundation, established in March 2018 and led by FIFA president Gianni Infantino, aims to foster positive social change around the world and raise support for the recovery and reconstruction of damaged or destroyed sports infrastructure worldwide. The Peres Center is the only Israeli organization to benefit from the foundation’s funding.
The Peres Center for Peace and Innovation have been shortlisted for the Beyond Sport Global Awards several times, most recently for the Sport for Conflict Resolution Award in 2015. To learn more about this year’s Awards - or to complete your application - head to beyondsport.org/awards. Entries close June 7!