By Chloe Esposito | Director, Lighthouse Relief
The International Peace and Sport Forum awarded Lighthouse Relief the 2024 "Empowerment through Sport" award! They recognized how children living in Ritsona camp have come to rely on our weekly football, basketball and other activities to help them overcome trauma, social isolation, and anxiety.
"I'm very proud of our team, volunteers, local sports partners, and everyone contributing to this program. It feels great to be recognized by such a prestigious organization," says Score4TheFuture program leader Jellina Keulen, who accepted the award in December in Monaco.
More about our award-winning program:
Score4TheFuture uses sports to address the particular psychological and social needs of refugee children living in an isolated camp. It empowers 400 children and young adults yearly to overcome social exclusion and thrive despite challenging circumstances.
The approach is trauma-informed, meaning that it recognizes the impact of trauma on participants and aims to foster safety, trustworthiness, collaboration, empowerment, and healing. The program blends psychology, sports science, and gender studies to support personal development and community building in line with Sport For Development principles. It imparts valuable life skills such as conflict resolution, respect for social norms, regulating negative emotions, and teamwork. It also promotes gender equality, mutual respect, and community cohesion among participants from different cultural, linguistic, and religious backgrounds.
Regular interaction with local peers through the participation of Greek sports clubs in football tournaments and joint practice sessions is a crucial feature that eases refugee integration into the host society.
Participant feedback and stories:
"Usually, we spend all day in the camp with nothing to do. When we get to play a match against the local Greek team or play amongst ourselves and enjoy our time together without thinking about anything else for 90 minutes, it's good for our mental health." - Adam (name changed for privacy), age 23 from Sierra Leone.
Two young siblings rarely missed a sports session over the two years they were in Ritsona Camp, and they especially enjoyed our summer camp. When it came time for their family to leave Ritsona, the children and their parents came to say goodbye, take pictures with us and express their gratitude. "Thank you for letting our children have fun. They learned a lot with you," Sara, their mom, told us.
When 10-year-old George (name changed for privacy) started attending our activities, we had to assign a team member to keep a close eye on him because he would often start fights, ignore the instructions, and disrupt the exercises for the other children. Like many refugee children, he was suffering from the trauma of being uprooted and living under harsh conditions. As time went by, though, his football skills improved, and it helped him gain confidence. Soon enough, he began passing the ball, listening to the referee and cheering on other players in his team. He even apologized for a foul and helped the other player up!
By Christianna Vaso | Communications and Development Officer
By Christianna Vaso | Communications and Development Officer
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