Game in Somaliland
game’s activities in somaliland 2020-2021 In Somaliland, GAME and Somaliland Score Initiative are empowering youth leaders by offering free training as volunteer coaches and role models in street sports and civil society. The young volunteers lead practices in street football and street basketball for local children and youths in GAME Zones in Somaliland. This article highlights the learnings and impact especially from the YESSSSS Together Program conducted from May 2020 to March 2021.
Somaliland yeSSSSs together project The overall objective of the Somaliland YESSSSS Together project (Youth Empowerment through Street Sports and Civil Society Strengthening across Somaliland) was to assist the next generation of leaders in Somaliland to take on a transformative quest to create participation and opportunities for all, resulting in a more equal and democratic society. This has been executed by educating Playmakers as agents for social change through street sports, introducing them to subjects as youth empowerment, gender sensitivity and community development and thereby engaging the local children with diverse background in weekly street sports trainings and culture activities. The second objective was focusing on internal capacity building in order to make local organizations able to offer educational youth empowering workshops.
A total of 1,570 attendances in weekly street sports activities from 2020-2021
45 youth has been trained as Playmakers with GAME’s youth empowerment method. 55% of the Playmakers were female.
The project successfully created 6 local GAME Zones and additionally 2 out of 6 GAME Zones were refurbished in order to create a safe space to play for the communities’ children and youth. Through internal capacity building different youth empowering workshops has been led by the local organizations; SCORE and SOCSA.
Interviews and surveys throughout the project
To measure if the project led to the anticipated outcomes GAME & SCORE conducted interviews and handed out surveys gathering information and opinions from the Playmakers, children and parents. Playmakers filled in a baseline survey (30 replies) and a follow-up survey (29 replies) about 7 months later to measure their progress.
Youth as agents of change GAME’s Playmaker Program offers youth an education as volunteer street sports instructors and role models. The training equips young people to lead weekly practices in street sports and street culture for local children and youth. Empowerment, life skills, teamwork, gender equality, and civil society is part of the volunteer education. The Playmaker Program consists of annual weekend education camps, weekly training in local GAME Zones and annual events like GAME Finals and Street GAME. GAME and its local partner SCORE have successfully implemented The Playmaker Program in Somaliland and through the ‘YESSSSS Together’ project a special focus has been added on making youth agents of change in their communities, increase their awareness and understanding about culture and gender sensitivity and to enhance their life skills leading to intra-community development. Due to their role as a Playmakers 93% stated that they see themselves as positive role models. 95% indicated they were more motivated to volunteer and shape their communities which is a great result considering that 57% were not involved in any organized activities before participating in GAME’s activities. Personal Development Next to the community development, being a Playmaker also focuses on supporting personal development hopefully resulting in a stronger interest in entrepreneurship and employability as youth unemployment is a major issue in Somaliland. Therefore, it is positive to see that the Playmakers indicated that after joining GAME they improved skills like problem-solving (93% agree), leadership qualities (93% agree) and the ability to solve conflicts (96% agree). One of the Playmakers, Suhayb Adnan Mohamed, explains how the skills he learned are not only useful on the
court but also in other areas of life: “The Playmaker Camp taught me skills that are very useful. For instance, we’ve been taught about first aid and I used that to help a friend of mine who I was playing football with. The ball hit him in the chest, and he couldn’t breathe so I helped him,” says Suhayb Adnan Mohamed. 96% of the Playmakers agree with Suhayb Adnan Mohamed that they learned skills which are useful in other areas of life. Playmaker Mohiuddin Ahmed Mawlid also found that he learned new skills after joining GAME: “I have learned to solve conflicts better. I feel confident about it. I remember one day, we were playing football in a stadium, there was a confusion about our appointed hour, another team claimed it was their hour. After a heated argument, I suggested that each team play 45min (the owner also sacrificed 30 min) and I also let the other team play first,” he says. A total of 45 youth was trained through GAME’s Playmaker Program from 2020-2021 in Somaliland. GENDER EQUALITY Increasing gender sensitivity and awareness as part of the first main objective was shown to be a great success as the number of Playmakers who thought that boys and girls should have the same opportunities in life raised from 77% to 83% during the program. 69% of the Playmakers felt comfortable in coaching participants of the opposite sex while only 47% felt comfortable with it only 7 months earlier. The biggest change could be seen in regard to the Playmakers feeling comfortable to have a coach of the opposite
sex as the numbers increased from 33% to 66%. Also, more Playmakers indicated having at least one friend of the opposite sex compared to before where 53% stated that they had none. According to the Playmakers it is rare, that girls are being provided with tools for development and new opportunities in Somaliland, 23 year old Bilan Mohamed Ahmed explains: “GAME provides us with spaces to have fun with so many girls, they give us balls, t-shirts and other equipment to play football. There are not many places in the country where you can find those things especially as a girl.” 55% of the 45 trained Playmakers were female in the YESSSSS Together project.
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GAME provides us with spaces to have fun with so many girls, they give us balls, t-shirts and other equipment to play football. There are no many places in the country where you can find those things especially as a girl.
- Bilan Mohamed Ahmed, Playmaker in Somaliland.
Bringing children together around sports
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One of the main goals of the project was to bring children from different clans and social, religious and ethnic background together to support intra-community development and to achieve a stronger awareness and understanding of each other’s cultures and to form linkages.
safe spaces
To measure the anticipated outcomes GAME & DUNK conducted interviews and handed out surveys gathering Based on the responses of 95 children who regularly participated in the GAME Zone activities a positive change in information and opinions from the Playmakers, children and parents. intra-community development can be seen. About 96% of the children agreed that playing sports in the GAME Zones them find new friends and 84% agreed also did helped to know people fromsports different backgrounds. Inmade the GAME Zones, 51% of the children statedthat thatitthey not them have aget safe place to practice before the establishment of the GAME Zones. Building friendships is one of the major aspects of street sports and the project seems to achieve exactly that, as Hamse 20-year-old Ahmed Jama states: Making courts safer, more inviting and more fun to inspire and strengthen the communities is a priority for GAME. In this program it has once again shown to be a vital focuspoint in order to get more children and youth active. “Some of them (the kids) found it hard to make friends and they ended up making so many friends, so that’s a great thing that haveawitnessed.” “We used toIhave very rough and unpleasant basketball court but now, our community court has been renovated with the help of the program and a lot of children come over to play at the court because they feel safer now than they used to,” says Christian Sackey, 19, Playmaker in Ghana. By providing safe spaces for practicing sports, the level of weekly physical activity increased immensely as 46% stated they did not do any sports before joining the GAME Zone practices. Now 96% say they are more physically active since joining GAME and DUNK’s activities.
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safe spaces Making courts safer, more inviting and more fun to inspire and strengthen the communities is a priority for GAME. In this program it has once again shown to be a vital focuspoint in order to get more children, youth but especially more girls active. 71% of the children stated that they did not have a safe space before entering GAME. With the establishment of the GAME Zones the project contributed to the expansion of more civic spaces. By providing a safe space for girls to socialize and develop freely it was possible to recognize a change in the mindsets of the girls as they become more confident and joyful. GAME provides the tools and opportunities for girls to participate in street sports which is a rarity in Somaliland according to the Playmakers. The project successfully created 6 local GAME Zones and additionally 2 out of 6 GAME Zones were refurbished in order to create a safe space to play for the communities’ children and youth.
In order to create a safer and more inviting space for the 55 participants and 13 Playmakers at the
girls-only
GAME
Zone in Eastern Hargeisa, the team in Somaliland put up proper lighting at their basketball court. Now the girls can play after sundown.