Focolare Movement

Sportmeet in India

Jan 23, 2016

A culture of sports that helps children achieve holistic growth and teaches respect, solidarity and peace to bring about a more united world.

Sports4peace“Sport can really change the world and make it more united”. Patsy Furtado, a hockey coach from Mumbai who once played for the Indian national hockey team, speaks with the strong conviction that comes from an equally strong experience lived with street children in this immense metropolis. She had met the Focolare and the idea of Sportmeet through a Run4unity event in 2005. Her passion for sports and the experience of unity lived that day fuelled her desire to join forces with other like-minded coaches and bring about change in the surrounding area, where children often can be seen living on the streets. She had just got to know a home for destitute children with 240 children, neglected by society. She got the idea to start coaching them in different sports: football, basketball, hockey, athletics … Every morning at 6.30am they started having a one hour training session. Initially there were 20 girls and 30 boys who came for training without shoes and proper sports gear. Today there are a number of teams, all having proper sport shoes, gear and kit bag. In 2007 they entered the inter-school competition at the all Mumbai level and the under-12 football team stood eighth in Mumbai among over 300 schools. This achievement made it to the Hindustan Times, one of Mumbai’s major newspapers, with the heading “United We Stand”. Listing the numerous achievements of this project, Patsy points to the fact that the children’s behaviour improved tremendously: sports taught them to be disciplined and after playing sports all their energy is used in the right way. Whereas it would be natural to be violent and aggressive with a background like theirs, they become confident and have self respect, they look after their hygiene and take responsibilities. Coming from various religions the children come together to play as a team and there are no differences among them. Sports4peace_IndiaIn 2009 the first Sports4Peace workshop was held in Mumbai. Promoting a cube with 6 rules to educate for Peace through sports, the idea of Sports4Peace captured the imagination of various coaches and others engaged in the field of sports in Mumbai and other cities in India. “Play well”, “Hang in there”, “Look out for others”: simple rules which have touched the lives and inspired several youth and sport enthusiasts to apply them with passion in their various disciplines. The idea of Sports4Peace became part of various interreligious cultural college activities as well as diocesan events in Mumbai and in Pune, a neighbouring city known for its numerous colleges. Presented in various Run4Unity editions also in Delhi, it was promoted in the recent United World Week hosted in Mumbai in May 2015, when a permanent Sports4Peace cube was installed in a prominent place in a public garden on Mumbai’s popular Bandstand promenade to remind all that sports, lived and played well, can promote peace and universal brotherhood. Gustavo Clariá

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