It is not possible for people to co-exist in a healthy manner without an open, tolerant, and peaceful cultural interaction. For multiculturalism to thrive, it must have its roots in the frequent, harmonious, and objective-oriented interaction among the youth of different cultures. Unfortunately, the avenues provided by social media, conventional media, educational institutions, and sports have all lacked a coherent strategy to engage youth with a focus on building identity, multiculturalism, peace, and tolerance. Sport as a medium nurtures these tendencies that have been ignored for too long. CYAAD is thus striving to develop partnerships that accord with CYAAD’s Strategic goal/s, specifically using sport as a tool for youth engagement and empowerment.
With an aim to improve youths’ emotional, physical and social well-being we are fostering youths’ access to recreational and sports activities. This is aimed to change the focus or outlook of youth from negative to positive thinking. This prevents youth from engaging in anti-social behavior including drug use and violence.
Sports activity helps to develop character, citizenship, and patriotism. As an integral part of our approach, CYAAD encourages sports and other physical competitive activities that engage children and youth, both girls and boys.
This includes the development of physical education, sport, and other school-led competitive activities that
can draw support from parents and others in the community. CYAAD has so far, engaged over 2000 youth
groups and supported them in the launch of their spots-related social action projects. Our record shows that over 30% of youths’ social projects have elements of sporting and recreational activities. Integrating sports
in youth-related projects is aimed to emphasize the value of sport to build child leadership skills, and self-esteem and empower them to make their own decisions.
Our focus has been so far on;
- Encouraging youth to organize and lead sports activities in education and community settings
- Capacity building of sports couches and Athletes to use human rights approach for youth
engagement sports activities. - Mainstreaming girls and minority youth participation in sports activities
- Revitalizing cultural and mainstream sports activities to foster greater youth engagement and
empowerment - Integrating youth sports projects with the provincial and district sports infrastructures.
Glimpses of CYAAD sports projects.