“Embrace football for peace, Somalia Youth welcomes the world to 2022 World Cup: As the players and fans across the globe are getting prepared to participate in “The 2022 FIFA World Cup”, we would like to reaffirm the fact that football could be the most unifying tool for peace in the world as it enables everybody to rise above differences among cultures and nations.

Over the last one-year Norwegian Church Aid / Kirkens Nødhjelp (NCA) and its partners namely KAALO and SADO mobilized 32 youth football teams in two districts of Belet Hawo in Jubaland and Garowe in Puntland states of Somalia and hosted 30 matches by bringing more than 5,000 youth in the playgrounds. These football matches provided avenues to all the clans to come together towards peaceful co-existence and dialogue for conflict resolution. Like many youths in Somalia, we can also say that “when the youth play and are positively engaged, the world wins”.

Traditionally sports activities are organized and managed by individual clans. Every clan at the local level has its own sports team and clan members only support their clan sports team. Inter-clan football matches often triggered conflicts as when one team wins the other team would not accept defeat. The peace building initiative of NCA in Somalia has successfully resolved these conflicts by facilitating the participation of youth from various clans in dialogue forums, civic education, and community conversations to prevent violence followed by bringing them together to participate in inter-clan sports.

The impact of extensive sensitization activities towards social cohesion can be experienced in many fronts. For example, the winning team is now recognized and congratulated by members from all the clans. The other example would be the participation of local authorities in the peace building process who not only come to the playground to cheer up the teams but also amplify the voices of the youth towards social cohesion and strengthen the social ties between and within districts and to pass key messages on prevention of gender-based violence (GBV) and other harmful practices against women and girls. Through social mobilization, 50 male youth have been trained as role models acting as change agents on prevention of GBV and promoting human rights. The experience also establishes the fact that youth could be the ambassadors of peace.”

– By Dipankar Datta, Ph.D.