In Kisumu, Kenya 250 girls live in an orphanage where they learn to play soccer. The Sacrena Soccer Academy, founded in 2000, provides orphaned girls with health education, health resources and successful soccer teams and tournaments.
And on May 4, Tim Hicks, director of the conflict and dispute resolution masters program at the University Law School, will present the girls with donated sporting equipment.
The athletic department’s student athlete volunteer group, O Heroes, has been collecting donated athletic gear since April 15 and will stop May 2, when Hicks goes to Kenya.
“We have gotten some good stuff so far,” Tori Klein, director of the Competition not Conflict program, said. The gear includes non-soccer equipment as well.
Senior Anna Poponyak, who directed the O Heroes drive, said in a statement, “I feel blessed that I can contribute to a good cause through donating some of my old lacrosse gear to children who share the passion of sport.”
In addition to bringing sports gear, Hicks is going to Kenya to finalize an agreement with the Sacrena academy to allow two interns from the conflict and dispute resolution master’s program to study conflict resolution there during summer for eight to 10 weeks.
The interns will study conflict resolution and help teach the concept to the Kenyan students. Klein said one reason they chose Sacrena was for what they thought would be an environment conducive to this kind of interaction.
The small size means “you can really get in there and talk about conflict resolution,” she said. Hicks said the interns will focus on interpersonal conflict, community conflict and even the conflict that arose in Kenya during the east African nation’s 2008 presidential elections.
“When the election went awry, violence erupted, and that violence broke along ethnic lines,” he said. More than a year later, that tension is “still simmering,” Hicks said.
However, he said, “We won’t go in there as experts delivering Western ways of conflict resolution.” Instead, the interns will have to find ways to resolve conflicts that exist within Kenyan culture.
The University’s expansion of its conflict resolution program to an overseas location reflects a growing national trend. For example, six universities have already exported parts of their curriculum to a campus in Doha, Qatar.
Michigan State University offers classes in Dubai, India and Georgia Tech University has degree programs in France, Singapore, Italy, South Africa and China, according to a February article in the New York Times.
Hicks said sports are a good way to educate children and resolve conflict.
“Sports is kind of a healthy, normalizing experience that allows youth to play,” he said, reflecting that many children in Africa have lost loved ones to AIDS or violence.
“Sports are incredibly healing for the youth that have gone through a lot.”
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Students donate training, gear to Kenyan orphanage
Daily Emerald
April 23, 2009
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