Legacy? So much more relevant for the Paralympics

Just came across a great article by GB Paralympian 100m sprinting star Sophia Warner:

The idea of legacy, for example, was heard frequently throughout the Olympics. But as a disabled person and a Paralympic athlete I believe it has so much more relevance in the case of these Games because they will have such a positive impact on mine, and so many other people’s, lives. They will showcase many different disabilities, help educate parents and children, and make their mark across the community, in schools and in the workplace.

For me, I will be able to refer openly to my disability, which will offer a sense of liberation and pride in what I have achieved, not just on the track but also in my everyday existence. I think that all this will help the next generation, offering a better chance of understanding and acceptance.

The full article on the Guardian website is here:

In search of the reach of women’s sports: Looking backwards and forwards across the UK

– Sarah Oxford –

Modern sport, meaning the team-organised variety with “a set of strict, precise rules which needed to be respected everywhere in the same way, in spite of local conditions and features”, appeared in 19^th Century England as a way to organise the masses during the transition to industrialisation and democracy (Bouzou, 89). Sport in the British colonies ensued and as such historians have argued that “sporting practices are historically produced, socially constructed, and culturally defined to serve the interests and needs of powerful groups in society (Bandya et al., 3).”

Since inception sport and the cash-cow elements of professional sport have been male-centric; however, because sport reaches all levels of society as a leisure activity, it naturally created (although grudgingly) a pathway to challenge gender norms. Oddly, it appears that due to modern circumstances, breakthroughs in gender stereotypes via sport happened less in the UK than in the USA.

The biggest surprise I’ve encountered as an American living in UK is the inherent sexism within sports. Besides Jessica Ennis, I rarely see women athletes in the media. Moreover, the idea of me as a footballer (regardless of awards or capability) is repeatedly questioned as if preposterous.  My own co-ed football team (note: I was the only girl this year) even fit the bill offering perverse ‘compliments’ such as you’re good for a girl and Sarah’s basically a guy.

Peace Studies FC

The backwards comments are disturbing, yet logical considering their role-models, such as Sir Bobby Charlton, are making similar delusional remarks. In reference to the British women’s football team, he said:

I have been watching women’s games on television and I have had to remind myself I am not watching the men. And I mean that as a compliment…

I need to do further research on feminist movements in Britain as I’m unclear what happened to allow this far-reaching male chauvinism in sport to exist in 2012. It’s especially ponderous because much theoretical debate about women and sport took place in GB and the First World Conference on Women and Sport took place in Brighton in 1994. More puzzling is that GB’s role in development and peace that I have seen here in East Africa includes top-down funding to socially inclusive sports programs. Fascinating hypocrisy?

This response to my first question, leads me ask:

Why did the USA move towards sports equity faster than the UK? Are there comparable laws like Title IX in other countries? Why is women’s football in USA, Japan, Germany and Brazil more advanced than other nations? Where is the impetus in the UK to fund women’s athletics in LMIC’s coming from? What is the importance of top-down legislation compared to grassroots efforts when it comes to developing a culture of acceptance and equality in sport? Does inclusion of women in sport create pathways for increased female participation in education, business, government? And if so, does social inclusion in sport lead to a more peaceful society?

Works Cited

Bouzou, Joel (2010): Peace Through Sport: When Myth Becomes Reality. Armand Colin/ IRIS, Paris.

Susan J. Bandya, Gigliola Gorib & Dong Jinxiac (2012): From Women and Sport to Gender and Sport: Transnational, Transdisciplinary, and Intersectional Perspectives, The International Journal of the History of Sport, 29:5, 667-674

The Ripple Effect

– Sarah Oxford – 

I can’t tell you how many times on the playground as a kid I heard a boy defame another by saying “you throw like a girl”. As a super-athletic girl, it baffled me. When I thought about it, it never made sense: I am a girl and I’m good at sports. I often beat boys at sports. So why wouldn’t he want to throw like me? Where is the link between my private parts and anyone else’s throwing skills?

Gender discrimination in sport is something every female athlete must face from novice to professional irrespective of nationality. As most female athletes know, when confronting sexism of this nature it’s empowering, uncomfortable and exhausting.

Swish!

To be blunt and elementary, sexism is stupid. It belittles the individual and then society-at-large by discouraging and thus not maximising on 50% of a populations potential. In sport it’s in all levels, but most destructive is structural sexism which deters the creation of youth programs, obstructs professional women’s athletic endorsements and therefore largely reduces the existence of female role-models.

Luckily for me, as mentioned here, I’m a Title IX girl. So even though many of the boys on my playground repeated jeers learned from their adult mentors in attempts to disparage my athletic career and boost their insecure egos, I had a message from the top-down that I could succeed. And with leaders like Secretary of State Hillary Clinton promoting sports as a vehicle for female empowerment abroad, that message keeps getting stronger all over the world.

A recent Washington Post article revealed that at the 2012 London Olympics the US Women won “two-thirds of the U.S. team’s golds and nearly 60 percent of the overall medals.” Judo, boxing and football (soccer) are only a few of the internationally male-dominated sports of which the US team dominated at the olympics, disproving stereotypes of frailty liken to femininity. (The next sentence is to be read in haut-voice.) “If the U.S. women were their own nation, they would have finished third in the gold medal table with 29 medals.” That’s beating the US men (15), China (17), and Great Britain (16).

Expanding upon the above numbers, The Huffington Post published an article discussing the imagined potential of societies where women’s rights and opportunities expand to every “sector of society, government and business.”

The World Economic Forum has found that those countries where women and men are closer to enjoying equal rights are far more economically competitive than those where women have little or no access to medical care, education, elected office and the marketplace. Imagine the progress we could make in economic and technological development, in global health, in democratic governance, if the potential of women in each of these fields could be finally and fully unleashed.

Supporters of women’s sports and female athletes are rejoicing at this monumental victory in women’s athletics and expect a ripple effect throughout the world. But exactly where does this ripple go and for how long? Where should the line of expectation be drawn?

To be continued…

 

Vijana Amani Pamajo: Youth Together In Peace

– Sam Dilliway –

So we’re now in Nairobi, Kenya. The first organisation we met with is VAP: Vijana Amani Pamajo.They work in both government run schools, and what are called ‘informal’ schools. ‘Informal’ schools are the ones that are outside of government responsibility often in informal settlements (slums), and are run by Churches, NGOs or local volunteers. They also work out in the communities after school and during holidays.

Skillz Kenya is the name of their main program, which is about HIV/Aids awareness and training. For this they run a number of special events and tournaments where football is the focus, and participants and spectators receive testing and health advice on the sidelines. This seems to be a common way of going about this across the East African region, where we have heard of a number of organisations utilising this same model where football and other sports are the hook for another goal.

HIV Program Poster in VAP Field Office

The program they run which focuses on girls is called Mrembo, meaning beautiful in Swahili. This addresses issues that specifically affect girls such as reproductive health, teaching about early pregnancy, abortion, relationship and sex advice. It also moves beyond this by attempting to empower the girls economically through the training of a skill. This is Nancy’s favourite project, believing it to have a very important impact. She passionately stated that:

“We need to go out and tell the world that soccer can be a powerful tool for girls as well as boys.”

Nairobi is very mixed ethnically, as people have moved from rural to urban settings, with the creation of peri-urban areas such as slums where many of these newcomers to the City live. This results in VAP programs are well integrated in terms of ethnicities. This diversity extends to their staff and volunteers.

We had an interesting discussion about the post election violence in 2007. VAP was not yet a formal organisation, but the current leaders were already aware of the possibilities of using sport to help communities and decided to run some sports tournaments in one of the affected areas close to them: the Kiambiu slum. Here they distributed food from friends and created a program for trauma recovery and peacebuilding. Nancy admitted that there was fear of entering the slum as a Kikuyu, entering into a Luo area, and at the start there was real tension with leaders not knowing if violence may spark up again, but they ran the program for some weeks with other community groups until funds ran out. The program still isn’t running at the moment due to a lack of donors, but they want to run it again in the future. After running this program they received funding from FIFA, and formalised their organisation.

Sam with staff at the VAP Field Office in Madiwa, Nairobi

Nancy also told us about a program created by GIZ (German Government) that they hope to run in the lead into the next election, scheduled for March, called Violence Prevention through Football.  Hopefully they can use it to make a positive difference in Nairobi.

On this, it’s interesting and encouraging to learn that VAP is part of a network called streetfootballworld which has connected VAP with three other organisations in Kenya which use Football for Development. They work together to share resources and training, and have also worked together to bid for funding.

Show me the money!

– Sarah Oxford –

A common theme I’ve discussed with SDP program directors is “losing” girls between age 16 and 18. They’re not certain if it’s because the girls/women gain household responsibilities, get married,  have children, or if it’s their interests when entering adulthood that pull them in different directions.

Two approaches are taking place. One is to create flexible mothers-only teams. This provides that specific group of women a social support network and platform to discuss the new challenges they are facing as mothers. Second, many programs, though unsuccessfully, are attempting to link the team with IGA’s (Income Generating Activities).

Sarah interviews Liz at VAP, Nairobi

As many feminists before me have argued, a woman’s empowerment lies in her economic freedom. Psychologically and through labels she will be considered the property of someone else until she can provide for herself. This is evermore evident in poverty-stricken areas where marriage includes a dowry/bride price (when a woman is exchanged through the transfer of goods from groom to father or vice versa), or the woman is forced into prostitution/sexually manipulated (sugar daddy) in order to acquire basic goods for survival.

But are sports teams the right platform for business? Perhaps, and perhaps not. From what I’ve witnessed thus far programs of this nature don’t appear to be successful. Is it the funding? Interest? Experience? I’m not sure. For a business to survive, there needs to be a magic combination of knowledge, an open market and participant investment (time, money, interest, overall-dedication).  Perhaps setting up entrepreneurial classes in cooperation with banks that will allow for low interest loans could be one possibility.

Otherwise, the project needs to be all encompassing like Second Sight’s program in India which trains a girls football team every morning and provides classes in the field of optometry by day,  which will lead them to jobs in the local hospital in the long term. Second Sight is a full investment as participants and their families must sign contracts that pledge the girls won’t marry until their twenties, but it also guarantees them education and a career (aka economic independence). So far, this is the only successful program using sport as a hook and following it up with a real, sustainable job that I’ve found.

Girls on the bottom- How do we break the cycle?

– Sarah Oxford –

I’ve observed girls sports programs throughout East Africa for a couple months now. And although evidence is mostly anecdotal, I wholeheartedly believe that these programs make a big difference in girl’s lives.

Research concerning girls and the impact of sports hasn’t been conducted to the extent needed. What has been done is research in Western nations that can be used as insight to the importance and benefit in the lives of adolescent girls there, and thus as a motivator for more research to be done in places with budding youth sport programs like East Africa.

In 1997 The Presidents Council on Physical Fitness and Sports researched and documented a positive correlation between girls and regular participation in sports. The report stated that these girls “tended to do better academically and have lower school drop-out rates” and “showed reduced symptoms of stress and depression…”A follow-up report revealed that female athletes in the United States “tend to become sexually active later in life, have fewer sexual partners, and, when sexually active, make greater use of contraception than their non-athletic counterparts.” (MYSA, Letting Girls Play, 2002).

Let’s not assume that there is a direct correlation between athletes across the globe, as people face various challenges in studies of this nature, but let’s also not ignore what sports can give a child.

A typical child raised in a slum is born into a world of disadvantages. Her health, sanitation, and nutrition will not be of standard. She will be less likely to attend school and more likely to be introduced to violence and sexual promiscuity. It’s the brutal cycle of poverty.

Mathare Slum, Nairobi, Kenya

However, give her an organized sports team and many of those ailments can be alleviated. She can face challenge without dire consequence (decision making on the pitch), she can form a family away from home, and she will partake in exercise that benefits her health. Now couple her team’s practices with an educational curriculum that uses an interactive educational methodology to teach about Aids prevention, puberty, sexual relations and conflict resolution. On top of that she is given a free number to call for any reason (most often domestic or gender based violence) and told she has free access to lawyers. Being a part of a program of this nature definitely beats idleness or remaining in an unsafe environment all day. The cost to her is nothing, the gain, everything.

MYSA U-13 Football Champions

I’m not saying this team won’t make up for child-abuse, because nothing can replace a loving and providing parent. No it doesn’t make up for rape and it won’t give her dinner money that she can find by partaking in forced prostitution.

But it will give her the opportunity to see that there is more to life than the world she knew before joining the team and more importantly it will provide her with the skills needed to move away from—or improve—her world.

The Search for Balls.

– Sarah Oxford –

I’m always excited to see new inventions geared towards relieving LMIC’s (Low – Middle Income Country) challenges. Recently I was handed a ball that I believe can change the game of football on the continent of Africa and beyond. With one bounce, this magical ball erased images of kids kicking home-made soccer balls on dirt pitches. Made of the same material as Croc shoes, this soccer ball is virtually indestructible. It’s potential for play seems endless.

One World Futbol

I held this ball at the beginning of my trip and envisioned that the SPD programs I would soon visit would all use these magical yellow balls. Three countries later, I sadly report I’ve still only held one of these balls. Moreover, I’ve been told that acquiring these balls seems more cumbersome than beneficial.

What happened? Once the rockstar investor got his ‘helping the needy’ attention in the press, did he turn his attention elsewhere? Once again in our divided world, we have the capability, but somehow not the ability to make the difference.

If you have spotted any of these balls, please let me know…or let’s reproduce some on our own terms!

Do the Olympics make people colour-blind?

– Sam Dilliway –

We’ve not written for the past couple of weeks because of Olympic fever! Now that it’s finished i’m thinking about what makes it valuable.

There is the obvious inspiration towards physical activity and the celebration of national successes. It seems from reading UK news sites for The Telegraph and Guardian, and the huge amount of positive comments on facebook, that many people in the UK have been very enthused about these games and the unparalleled success of GB’s “best-ever” team.

In a country that in recent years has been overly familiar with news of financial doom, security threats and corruption in politics, it seems the ability of the country to successfully stage such a fun and enjoyable games has really lifted the “collective mood,” if there is such a thing.

There is also the idea of the Olympic Truce (ékécheiria in Ancient Greek) where originally a truce between warring countries was announced before and during the Olympic Games, in order that participants and spectators could travel safely to the games. The Olympic bigwigs have picked this up again since 1992 and the UN has adopted resolutions to build Peace through Sport. It’s not something I know a huge amount about, but it seems a worthy idea.

Another topic that seems to have been front and centre is of the impact caused by successful immigrants upon racial discourses in a country they excel in and represent at sports. In my conversation with Dr Rhys Kelly before I left Bradford, he suggested a very interesting piece of research could be to look at the impact the success of top foreign footballers have upon fans that have previously exhibited racism and extreme-right sympathies. What is the impact on a racist Londoner who comes to worship Thierry Henry because he is an Arsenal fan? When I was a kid, my local team was Millwall. I wasn’t taken to their games until I reached a suitable age, but I remember in the all-standing terraces terrible racial abuse directed at black players, who were always apprehensive about playing at The Den.

Conversations such as these have been initiated during these Olympics thanks to the success of such athletes as Jessica Ennis and Mohammed Farah.  Ennis has one British parent and one Jamaican parent, a fact that has been drawn upon to show the new multi-cultural Britain.

Jessica Ennis/GB Flag

Farah, who arrived from Somalia to London at age 8, is a fanatical Arsenal FC fan, and his success has been seized upon to show the positive impact a refugee can have upon the country.

Farah wins Gold

In an article for the Guardian, Tom Clark and Owen Gibson write about the results of a Guardian/ICM poll, which attempted to find some answers in this area:

“By a two-to-one margin of 68% to 32%, respondents agree that modern Britain is stronger as a country of many cultures, support for multiculturalism that rises to 79% in London and 81% among the very youngest respondents, aged 18-24.

On the other hand, after being reminded of the success of minority ethnic Britons such as the Somali-born 10,000m champion, Mo Farah, voters remain inclined to doubt that most newcomers do anything positive for Britain. By a narrow 53%-47% margin, the survey finds agreement for the suggestion that “More often than not immigrants … do not bring anything positive, and the likes of the Olympic-winning athletes are an exception”.

Faith in the contribution of immigrants is much stronger in London, where 62% disagree with this statement, and a majority of respondents aged under 45 likewise disagree, but among pensioners there are particularly marked doubts about newcomers – with 64% of the over-65s describing the Olympians as “exceptions”.

So, whilst there is support for the idea of multiculturalism, and a belief in the positive contributions of immigrants from residents in the Capital (the most multicultural of the UK’s Cities), the idea that newcomers bring something positive is supported less by older people, and those outside London. Interesting but not surprising. I wonder what such a survey would find in my City, Bradford, where there has been significant tension between British and immigrant communities from India and Pakistan, now into their third generation in the UK.

“Attitudes harden further when the question switches to immigration in general. Only 32% of respondents say the Olympic successes make them “more positive (or less worried)” about it, against just 68% who disagree.”

Whilst some of the 68% may simply feel the Olympics do nothing to change an already positive and unworried position on immigration, my feeling here is that respondents found it harder to make a link between Olympic success and economic gain to the country, where discourses around unemployment and the causal effect of immigration over the past five years have often hit the headlines, particularly in newspapers such as The Daily Mail. Nevertheless, it is interesting to me that respondents think multiculturalism is positive, but are still worried about immigration. Perhaps they wish to show toleration for all those already in the UK, but are worried about more arrivals? I would guess that the bad state of the economy must be a prime factor in this.

Does this small survey provide any evidence that the Olympics has assisted in creating a culture of peace through improving toleration? I would suggest that the answer is that it is inconclusive: while thinking towards multiculturalism was positive, there was still significant adverse feeling about immigration. In addition, the more negative views from those outside of London and over 45 years of age could be a cause for concern, though it is positive that the age-range most likely to be inclined to violence, those aged 18-24, showed stronger support for multiculturalism.

Full gallery of pics from the East Africa Cup on Flickr!

Available at this link!