What does Ultimate Frisbee have to do with Peace?

"Three grand essentials to happiness in this life are something to do, something to love, and something to hope for." -Joseph Addison, writer (1672-1719) 

Ultimate Frisbee: common on college campuses, fun pass time on the beach, cool beer drinking community, a game really meant just for dogs...

Those are the things that people usually comment when I mention Ultimate.

I actually began really playing Ultimate when I first lived in Colombia in 2009. (See this post in my old blog and the follow up post.)  It was one of the highlights of my time in Cartagena and my experience with the team Jiva inspired me to return to the US to study social work. (I already accounted some of this part of my story previously in my first post on this blog.)

But in the past few years, Ultimate Frisbee has taken on a whole new significance in my life.

When I first arrived in Libertad in 2013, I had a couple of discs with me, ready to make friends through teaching a new game.  It took quickly.  A group of us played pick-up whenever the soccer players weren't occupying the only field in town.  But that wasn't enough for this group of innovative youth.  They wanted to spread this game that they grew to love so quickly.

So we did.

In 2015, the first tournament took place in Libertad (San Onofre) with three communities participating thanks to the support of individuals and teams from the US.

We all realized that playing Ultimate Frisbee was more than just fun, but also a way to start conversations about values that sow peace (respect, gender equality, teamwork, honesty, responsibility), and motivate them to become more involved in community processes. Since there tends to be a lot of apathy and hopelessness among youth, it can be difficult to find interesting ways to start conversations about topics like peace and reconciliation.  .

Using a sport like Ultimate Frisbee is a creative way to start these conversations.  Many youth who don't usually participate in meetings or community processes are attracted to the sport.  Also as a part of the rules, the game has topics like respect, honesty, and responsibility (there is not a referee so the players must decide when fouls happen and solve conflicts in  healthy way), gender equality (all genders play together), and team work (if a team doesn't play together, they cannot play successfully).  In addition to having these values as part of the game, the sport creates the opportunity to build relationships and trust with youth in order to have more direct and open conversations about peace and reconciliation.

In 2016, the youth continued playing and sharing the sport with other communities, and had the second tournament in Huamanga (El Carmen) with five communities participating.  This time, Matt and Jared, along with US Major League Ultimate (unfortunately no longer existing) supported the tournament and clinics in each of the communities.  They created a video series based on their experiences.  Ultimate Frisbee de Montes de María is featured in several episodes:

     Episode 1: Clinic in Mampuján

     Episode 2: The Travel Day to Tourney

     Episode 3: The Tourney

     Episode 4: Clinic in Huamanga

     Episode 5: Clinic in Pichilín

     Episode 6: Clinic in Libertad

In 2017, the youth continued to expand the sport and its values and organized the third tournament in Bajo Grande (El Carmen) with 7 communities participating.  Using a promotional video created by a friend, we were able to raise the money for the tournament thanks to awesome donors and believers in the importance of Ultimate as a peace building tool.

Being involved in a sport also can be a first step to becoming more involved in the community.  In these few years, there has been a growth in the participation of the youth on the Frisbee teams (40 players in 2015, 60 players in 2016, and 100 players in 2017) as well as participation in leadership in their communities.  Continuing to motivate youth participation in community processes is necessary for the future leadership of the communities, especially in the current context of the implementation of the peace accords that have direct effects in the communities of Montes de Maria.

In addition to the regional tournaments that the communities have organized, they also participated in several guest workshops in which players from Colombian teams and from US professional teams have come to continue encouraging the players and drawing the attention of the communities.  One of the longest standing teams in Montes de Maria even participated in a National tournament in Cartagena as ambassadors from the initiative.  It was an amazing and inspiring experience, not only for the coastal players but for the other teams to meet a team representing a movement using Ultimate Frisbee as a peace building tool.

From pick up games to national tournaments, the journey with the players from Ultimate Frisbee de Montes de María has been humbling for me and inspiring, and has taught me that peace building comes about in unexpected ways.

"...something to do, something to love, and something to hope for" are not only three grand essentials to happiness, but also to sowing peace.  And for us, Ultimate is our something to do, in order to cultivate peace in the communities that we love, so that we can live in the world that we hope for.

What does the Environment Have to do with Peace?

“Sometimes we forget that the water cycle and the life cycle are one in the same."

-Jacques Cousteau

"Myth: we have to save the earth. Frankly, the earth doesn't need to be saved. Nature doesn't give a hoot if human beings are here or not. The planet has survived cataclysmic and catastrophic changes for millions upon millions of years. Over that time, it is widely believed, 99 percent of all species have come and gone while the planet has remained. Saving the environment is really about saving our environment -- making it safe for ourselves, our children, and the world as we know it. If more people saw the issue as one of saving themselves, we would probably see increased motivation and commitment to actually do so." 

-Robert M. Lilienfeld, management consultant and author (b. 1953) and William L. Rathje, archaeologist and author (b. 1945)

When I was studying social work, I never imagined that my future job would include investigating rivers. 

But it did.  And it totally makes sense.

In Sembrandopaz we accompany community processes that work towards building peace and promoting reconciliation.  As the coordinator of youth accompaniment, I got to know groups of youth from different communities who are dedicated to transforming their region and are confident that peace is possible.  One of the main focuses of these youth is protecting and taking care of their environment.

The youth have many reasons for making the environment a priority.  A few are:

• Without a safe and healthy place to live, we have the stress of sharing limited resources among larger populations.
• With the recent droughts, youth have lived the grave consequences and struggles that come with climate change and not taking care of the environment.
• If we do not actively take care of our own environment which directly affects our own well-being, how can we expect to care for others and reconcile with those who we feel are against us?

I had the opportunity to accompany youth in learning about recycling, trying to create healthier ways to get rid of garbage, teaching new sustainable farming strategies, reforesting, and learning about native plants and animals.

But our main focus was water.  

Many people will say water is life, and living through droughts has shown me that very directly (though I absolutely recognize that privileges I enjoy made even that experience much easier for me than for most).  Deciding if you should take a shower, wash you dishes, flush your toilet, or cook with your last bit of water is not a decision anyone should have to make. And forget about watering your crops or your vegetable garden.

Facing these challenges, we decided to support groups of youth to study their waterways, create plans for taking care of the nature in their communities, and even write proposals for the government to support the initiative as a substitution for military service, which would give youth an option to be trained in something besides violence as well as more opportunities once they leave service.

And that is how I ended up walking over 50 kilometers of rivers in Colombia with amazing and dedicated youth.

In the process we not only learned about the physical state of the rivers, but also learned the history and culture linked to the rivers, formed new relationships with other communities on the riverbanks, learned how to use new technologies (i.e. GPS, cameras, google maps), and everyone participated in the process from the planning and budgeting to the systematization of the data and the evaluation of the investigation.  Now the youth are in the process of creating their action plans based on what they learned (building greenhouses, reforestation plans, teaching the community about the importance of healthy garbage removal, protecting native animals, community ecotourism plans are a few examples) and writing the proposal for using the strategy as a substitution for military service.

So how is this building peace?  

• The investigation facilitated connections between communities that are located nearby, share the same water resources, but did not have relationships.  
• The youth in the investigations learned new skills in leadership, technology, planning and evaluation, and proposal writing.  
• We all have had the opportunity to directly see how our actions affect the environment (pollution of the water because of garbage, land slides because of deforestation, dry riverbeds because of sand removal, etc) which has motivated us to share the experience and look for alternatives in order to protect our natural resources and live at peace with nature.  
• Creating opportunities for youth to stay in their home communities, earn an income doing constructive work, and learn skills that promote nonviolence and community building, is a huge step towards peace.  

There are many other ways that the youth in Montes de María are building peace through taking care of nature and the environment and I am grateful for having the opportunity to learn alongside them.

Thank you Vigías Ecológicos, thank you JOPPAZ, thank you OJFP, thank you Sembrandopaz, thank you MCC, and thank you Dios.

Ánimo y pa'delante compañerxs! Sí se puede!