PeacePlayers Basketball Clubs
This project's parent organization is PeacePlayers International – Middle East
It operates in Israel
It uses Basketball
Entered the Sport for Conflict Resolution Award
More about PeacePlayers Basketball Clubs
Recent approaches to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict emphasize that a negotiated solution will require a transformation of the attitudes of both communities in the direction of reconciliation, mutual trust, and cooperation. Despite the need for trust building and reconciliation on a popular level, Israelis and Palestinians have almost no opportunities for positive contact and are instead left to learn about the “other” primarily through media, myths, and stereotypes, allowing prejudice and fear to thrive.
The PeacePlayers Basketball Clubs (PPBC) uses basketball, considered a neutral sport in Israel and Palestine, to provide a forum for positive interaction and relationship building between Palestinian and Israeli children and youth. Participants also learn from PeacePlayer's "Anatomy of Peace" curriculum, the goal of which is to create a safe, neutral space in which youth can begin to see each other as people and begin to work together to achieve shared goals.
The power of the PPBC also lies in its structure, which is long-term, frequent and cyclical. Through the program, participants become leaders, who later become coaches and apply their own gains onto the next generation.