Sports and Social Development

“In 1997, Luke Dowdney bumped into a young man carrying a Colt AR-15 rifle as he came round a corner in Rocinha, a favela in Rio de Janeiro. “It was an awkwardly polite moment,” Dowdney recalls. “I said sorry and he said sorry and then I walked on.”

The sight of a young man, probably 15- or 16-years-old, armed with a weapon designed for military combat, is not uncommon in Brazil’s poor and disenfranchised urban communities. Drug-related violence can make daily life feel like a war zone. “The homicide rates are off the scale. An estimated 15,000 young people are armed and in drug factions,” explains Dowdney, a British researcher and amateur boxer. So in 2000, Dowdney founded Fight For Peace to offer young people an alternative to the violence.

Projects like Fight for Peace that seek to use sports to achieve social objectives –poverty reduction, conflict resolution, gender empowerment or youth development – are growing in number and popularity. The London 2012 Olympics prioritised inspiring young people through sport and as a result, the International Inspiration (IN) coalition was formed. Other large organisations such as Standard Chartered, Barclays and Nike have started or funded projects, joining a slew of grassroots initiatives (Grassroot Soccer, The Jala Pelo Foundation or Women Win) and those started by sporting bodies such as Fifa.”

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