PERES CENTER FOR PEACE AND INNOVATION PARTNERS WITH ISRAELI FOOTBALL ASSOCIATION

February 22, 2019

The Peres Center for Peace and Innovation this week announced the launch of a new partnership with the Israeli Football Association. This collaboration will focus on the Peres Center program, “Playing Fair, Leading Peace,” which drives peace education through sport. Launched in 2015, the program combines leadership training for outstanding university students with peace education activities for children. 

Student Leaders and young participants come from diverse backgrounds and across religious and cultural sectors, with an emphasis on socially and geographically isolated communities. The 17 Student Leaders, young men and women, will train in peace education through sport methodologies including the FairPlay method and language-sports games uniquely tailored by the Peres Center. 

The goal is to enable the 280 participating boys and girls from Israeli Jewish and Arab schools to become empowered agents of change and learn how to resolve conflict on and off the soccer pitch.

Special efforts are being taken to ensure that 50% of Student Leaders and young participants are girls and women. To date, 60 Student Leaders and 1,000 children have participated in the program.

Tamar Hay Sagiv, Director of the Peace Education Department said, “The 'Playing Fair, Leading Peace' Project was born out of the desire to take the positive values found on the football pitch - teamwork, leadership, and cooperation - and promote them within schools to bring together boys and girls from diverse backgrounds.” 

“Partnering with the Israeli Football Association was a natural step, as we share the belief that football is a powerful tool for encouraging acceptance of the 'other' and shared-living."

The Peres Center for Peace was shortlisted for the Beyond Sport Global Awards for Best Project for Peace and Reconciliation in 2009 and for the Sport for Conflict Resolution award in 2015. They won the Beyond Sport Leadership in Sport Award, supported by Mishcon de Reya in 2016.