Testimonials

"I met new players I didn't know before, and learned how to play with new people. The best part was learning things from new players and different areas coming together. I learned you don't have to judge a person based on his religion."

"When you get to know your teammates, it doesn’t really matter what they’re religion is."

"It’s hard to live without my parents, but my PPI coach is always there for me. He’s really more like a brother."

"I met new players I didn't know before, and learned how to play with new people. The best part was learning things from new players and different areas coming together. I learned you don't have to judge a person based on his religion."

"I was scared to death at first. But by the end of the match, I realized we were all the same."

"At the start [playing together] wasn't weird, but it was different because we would never have gotten the opportunity to go out and meet Protestants and be friends with them."

"In the beginning I participated for the basketball, but then I made friends with the Turkish-Cypriots. Now we play and we all have fun together."

"A lot of kids believe that one kid on the other side is a good person, but every other one is a bad person, and they then carve out these narrow exceptions. What [PPI’s] curriculum is doing is reversing that process. It allows them to consider the possibility that the others can be good people too."

"I’m glad that Ronnie’s taking part in PeacePlayers…hopefully Ronny doesn’t have to go through what I went through at Ronnie’s age.”"

"Programmes like this that work at the grass roots level with the young people in our society are vital to achieving sustainable peace within our communities. We are committed to supporting and facilitating projects that provide opportunities for young people from different community backgrounds to come together to explore common issues and experiences."

"We find that the PeacePlayers program brings in life-skills in a non-threatening way, and is helping to educate children on the big issues of HIV…We also find that in the PeacePlayers program, we integrate children from different communities. They get to meet diffeent people. They get to meet children from different race groups, different cultural groups, and through that interaction they get to learn what’s different between them, but they also learn what’s common between them."

"We find that the PeacePlayers program brings in life-skills in a non-threatening way, and is helping to educate children on the big issues of HIV…We also find that in the PeacePlayers program, we integrate children from different communities. They get to meet diffeent people. They get to meet children from different race groups, different cultural groups, and through that interaction they get to learn what’s different between them, but they also learn what’s common between them."

"I’m glad that Ronnie’s taking part in PeacePlayers…hopefully Ronny doesn’t have to go through what I went through at Ronnie’s age.”"

"Programmes like this that work at the grass roots level with the young people in our society are vital to achieving sustainable peace within our communities. We are committed to supporting and facilitating projects that provide opportunities for young people from different community backgrounds to come together to explore common issues and experiences."

"A lot of kids believe that one kid on the other side is a good person, but every other one is a bad person, and they then carve out these narrow exceptions. What [PPI’s] curriculum is doing is reversing that process. It allows them to consider the possibility that the others can be good people too."