Somali Youth Voluntary Group Association | SOYVGA – PROGRESS REPORT IN Enhancing the Role of Arts, Culture, and Sports in Promoting Peace in Afgoye District Lowershabelle REGION,

From 1-November, 2014-December, 2014

The aim of these initiatives is to revitalize the popularity of art, music, and expressive cultural events in the traditionally oratory and artistic Somali society with the eventual focus on re-engaging and revitalizing the Somali arts and music that was destroyed during the war and using it to advocate for peace and reconciliation in Afgoye district, the objective of the project To organize the mobile theatre in Afgoye District to revive the interest in music and arts as instruments for unifying society and combating against extremism through culture and sports

By staging several events organize a sports soccer tournament among four districts in afgoye district to increase the capacity and skills of Somali young foot ball players and enhancing community integration, local security and establishing marketable skills. Community Volunteers involved in the centers operate at the sites weekly and a series of activities are carried out so as to enhance the success of the project provide access supported by IOM and implemented by SOYVGA.

The local authority played a very important role during the implementation of the project starting from the official opening of the events by at successfully project effectively and efficiently by providing and maintaining the security hence project volunteers and implementers can get access to all afgoye community centers for mobile theater teams and foot field to the foot ball teams.

Project Beneficiaries identified through the trainings and community cohesions

Activities undertaken

2 a Tournament training of youth Arts, Sport and culture

Organize a sports soccer tournaments and trainings among four districts in afgoye district in order to increase the capacity and skills of Afgoye district young foot ball players and enhancing community integration, local security and establishing marketable skills through integration. The selection process of team identification was done During the course of the training with the support of Afgoye district football federation, the event opening ceremony was participated by the local authorities the district commissioner and district social affairs in the District council Venue Hall at 8:30 the DC Mr Haji Gaabow briefed and welcomed with thank giving to all the stake holders participants from different parts of the district and described important of youth to the society, the DC was over powered by the emission and feeling after narrating the impacts of decades civil war to community of lower shabelle specially Afgoye district and start crying , he encouraged the young youth to closely collaborate with the local authority in order to achieve our goals toward developments,

SOYVGA recruited well experience facilitators for the training conducted for young footballers, club managers, and coaches, referees, coordinators, the participants of training from within Afgoye districts posses the skills on how to enhance community integrations through fair play’ the training participants from four villages within Afgoye district benefited from the new innovation of promoting peace through sports and culture, The training facilitator expressed the objective of the fair play training is to create awareness and capacity building in order to achieve stability and community integrations through sports tournaments’

The three days sports training sessions composed of specific session’s coordinators orientations selection club identifications, and hand over of sports material to four football clubs for events,

The sessions ended successfully and developed with forgiveness and distribution of sports material to the four clubs transparently in presence of entire local authority of Afgoye district, the sport material composed of deferent colors of tea shirts, shorts, socks, shoes Five balls and trophy was hand over to the relevant club leaders ,the participants were awarded with certificate for participations,

2b Distribution and hand over youth sports material

The event of official hand over of Sports material was conducted by local Administration jointly with Afgoye football federation and SOYVGA Program transparently in presents of all leader of Afgoye district from various parts of the areas, The district security officer congratulated the way the event happened and quoted such innovation can contribute to good community integrations between the local authority and the community and support social transparency, confidence ownership

SOYVGA Executive director Mr Abdikadir Mohamed Nur hand over the sports tournaments material composed of T shirts, shorts, socks, shoes, five footballs and one trophy to the local authority of Afgoye district and later the authority handover to district football federations heads successfully with accountability checked and delivered to team leader of the four sports groups forms from each side in the district Lastly selections of the tournaments opponents was done transparently through lottery ballots for the four teams each in the district by the football federation of Afgoye and the impacts contented the young sports youth talented in the district

2 c Official opening of the match tournaments

The event of opening of soccer tournament started with Official opening speech by the district administration and football federation leaders from Afgoye briefing all young youth football to main there spirit and respect each opponents and about the important of sports to the audiences is bringing people together to take part in enjoyable activities and encourage individuals to think about their role in the local community through sports in order to increase community cohesion and peace promotion and unify the communities,

The districts sports officer Mr Buri clearly remained the community about the impacts of civil wars which was the biggest challenges in sports and destroying of playing infrastructures in the districts and later informed the community that such sports events is beginning of building community integrations’ through sports boosting the moral young talented sports players back us usual since the

The master of the ceremony Mr Ismail District social affairs of Afgoye District expressed the important of sports, community integrations and role of youth and administration in fostering sports and the general challenges facing sports for the last two decades.

As per the timeframe of the district football federation office the final fair play tournament was suppose to kick off on 21-Nov but unfortunately due unexpected heavy rain over the week the district the tournaments was officially postponed to 29-Nov which was the official kick off of the tournaments in the district between the first two opponents from both sides in the district with draw score 1-1 and later penalty shut out the second team played the next day and one resting day later the final fair play final tournaments was on 2-Nov between Balgure vs xawatako with full time of 90 mints with zero scores and end with penalty, Bulgure football team wined with 6 goals and the official winning trophy was officially awarded to the team captain for celebrations in presences of Afgoye District and the communities,

SOYVGA Executive Mr Abdikadir Mohamed Nur Congratulated all parties who contributed to the success of the events and endless efforts and time they contributed starting from the beginnings up the last final tournaments ‘day specially the District social affairs, District security officer, Afgoye District foot ball federation chairman, Afgoye District chair women spectators and the four teams participated this valuable youth sports integration and cohesion tournament from four Division of Afgoye district if therefore say thanks to all.

One of the spectators of the tournaments Mr Aweys Omarow said I cannot control my emotion because of as former foot ball player how this tournament organized and disposed transparently could had never happened for the last decades in lowershabelle and inspired more expectation to the community integration for peace promotion togetherness in such overcrowded district playing ground and encourage such event should be delivered in whole other areas of the region and continuing as ongoing long term activities.

2 d Erect/fix billboards and slogans conveying the importance of

Arts, Culture, and Sports in building social cohesion

Bill board’s covey Arts, Sports, and Culture was erected by (SOYVGA) with Approval of stake holders and collaboration of Afgoye District authority and community mobilizes, mapping of specific sites of fixing the prepared bill boards in specific strategic places was approved by the local authority in order to make the community clearly read and understand the messages.

The bill boards was erected on 11-Tuesday -14 by (SOYVGA) with hired local engineer in several strategic parts of the district a long side the main road entering Afgoye district and away to Boidoa and in one specific Afgoye district bridge commonly used by the local communities next to Al-QASIMI School nearby the river,

(SOYVGA) programs and the local authority monitored the erected bill boards and acknowledged the site of erected bill boards in the district, the resilience of Afgoye district well came the new innovation of peace promotion through Art, Sport and Culture and displaced peace Messages

2 a Establish and organize musical band of young talented artists and develop the purpose and compose a focused short play and Conduct Community sensitization in the concept of musical band

SOYVGA Team for youth Art and culture led by project manager and community mobilizers Conduct Community sensitization in Afgoye district and briefed the project descriptions about the concept of using Culture for creating stability, and unity. In the district, the aim of these initiatives is to revitalize the popularity of art, music, and expressive cultural events in Afgoye district,

With the support of Local authorities adverse the communities about impacts the proposed activities may have on the heritage value of Arts, cultural heritage Music and culture in Afgoye district

SOYVGA project community mobilizes, District social affairs and representative of district education officer, Afgoye young talented artists divided in the four Afgoi district e.g. hawa Tako, 21 oct-A, 21-oct-b-Dagaxtur, the project community mobilizes Create awareness to both primary and secondary, Mr. Abdikadir Mohamed Nur the executive director officially later joined and explained to the communities beneficiaries about community opportunities for participation in community life through festivals event and activities

Strengthen creative ideas, inspire citizens, and offer hope that opportunities exist and matter to the community.

Mr. Qadar Daalib Mohamed The head master of Darrul Elmi primary school congratulated SOYVGA for the expensive time and efforts they in visiting schools and creating such events, for the last two decades us indigenous marginalized communities living in Afgoye district I have not experienced such event since the impacts of civil war devastated violated human right in general, we really appreciate the innovations of peace and community integrations through schools festivals regarding which empower individual and family, community and increase transparency, confidence among the communities and student at large,

SOYVGA programs for Arts, Sport and Culture participated the by school teachers, Students, community education committee and Afgoye young talented musician staged music and poems to the school, the young musicians explained the importance of peace and in school components which was very expensive, practically the emission of the students was uncontrollable from poems regarding education for peace e.g. learning is prosperity to life and searching for education for at young stage will benefit you in future and without peace there is no education,

b Preparations of stages for conducting sessions,

.Composing song and poems and stage in governments and community centers

SOYVGA Team for youth Art and culture led by project manager and community mobilizes, musicians and drama composer staged theatre drama in Afgoye district, The young talented musician conducted several cultural music, drama, poems focussing the important peace and stability to the community though cultural event,

The first stage of the event was opened with common cultural be live ISTUN practised by the communities of Afgoi districts, the communities of afgoi district respect istunka martial arts festival that is held annually in the town during the Somali the New Year dates, the young talented passé peace message to the large communities of Afgoi districts and achieved the objective of the events

With support of the local authorizes the events was successfully staged in the afgoi district administration compound in presence of the communities youth and civil society and local media at large, One of the community participant interviewed responded that such event can be fruitful and create unity to the community’s specially youth from Afgoi district, As we understand Afgoi communities rights was violated from the civil war resulting to looting, killing etc,

More over this project gave us a hope restore and showed that there is a transparency and the community have equal rights and good ownership, The will also create stability as now started from this closing grant Quotes from young participants Mr. Ismail Ali.

he concluded in the interview that he can’t imagine his feelings more than this by expressing his positive motion he said in Afgoi district we have never witnessed such the closed community peace awareness project which is the best way and new innovation which can benefit the communities of Afgoi district,

Later the event was officially closed by the district social affairs of Afgoi district with some thank giving to the participants from within the district the organization and the entire for the effort and timeless of attending the festival,

Mr Ismail added on behave of the local administration of Afgoi district I express my feelings the designed innovation can promote and create a good collaborations and confidence between the community and the administration, it is a good governance capacity building for Afgoye community,

Results of the implementation out input

-Promoted capacity and skills of Afgoi youth artist in peace building within Afgoi district.

-built confidence between the communities and the government

-promoted community integrations

-Established youth dynamic youth network trough foot ball match tournaments within Afgoi district

-Investe in first establishing good relations build on confidence and trust

Conclusion

Implementing a project on Arts, Sports and culture in enhancing the role of Art, sports and culture in Afgoye district, lowershabelle Region from November 2014 Nov-December 2014 Was to revitalize the popularity of art, music, and expressive cultural events in Afgoye district,

Introduction of long term stability projects in order to promote peace building activities for youth affected by the prolonged civil war and lack of employments by job creations eg entrepreneurship projects in order to make project sustainable and minimize the rate of youths uneducated, unskilled and hence unemployed and thus remain highly vulnerable to be used by extremist and war lords to perpetuate violence. Similar numbers of youths have migrated to urban towns and also continue to relentlessly pursue illegal and dangerous migration routes to western countries and Arab commonly known as “Tahriib” and often fall for organised,

To encourage youth education development protections programs, this will help social cohesions network between the youths to solve their own problems among them self’s can contributes and link and promote community participations initiatives

CAPTURED PHOTO DURING THE EVENTS

Fixed billboards in Afgooye conveying peace message

Training for fair play

Stake holders signing Hand over sports material

Youth cohesion for sports tournaments

Final game for Youth cohesion for sports tournaments

Winning Cup for Youth cohesion for sports tournaments

Celebration Youth cohesion for sports tournaments in Afgoye District