The All-Stars with Coach Boaz at their first game of the season
Last night, All-Stars season got officially into swing when the younger girls’ team played (and won with flying colors) their first game of the season, against a team from the town of Shoham. Through a partnership with ASA Jerusalem, one of Israel’s top women’s sports clubs, PPI – ME has enrolled three integrated Palestinian-Israeli teams in the Israel Basketball Association’s youth league this year.
Pregame on the court, tensions are high. Who will win the first game of the season?
Two teams – one made up of middle-aged girls and the other of high school girls – play regionally while another high school-age team competes nationally, which is the highest level of competition in Israel for that age group. PPI – ME got started in the league in 2010, launching the first ever mixed East-West Jerusalem league team, and this year’s partnership with ASA marks another move forward for us, as it further boosts are rep in the basketball world, and lets our efforts reach an even greater number of unaffiliated, and sometimes even skeptical people through high-profile league games and media coverage.
The younger girls’ team was the first to compete this year, with the other two teams starting league games next week. Their first game, which conveniently enough took place at home court, ended in an astounding victory for our girls. Stay tuned for more All-Stars news!
Today’s post is written by Brian Cognato, PPI’s Technical Assistance Program Director.
One of the roles of PPI’s Technical Assistance program is to zoom out and determine what holds true across all our sites. Each of the locations where we work is unique, of course, but we’re always on the look out for new innovations or best practices that we can refine, roll out and continue to adapt for a deeper impact.
The Jerusalem All Stars are one example of leveraging partnerships to scale.
We wanted to pause and spotlight one of these emerging best practices today because it’s been a hot topic here on “From the Field” recently. Like most of what we do, it looks slightly different in each location, but we can roughly summarize the idea as “leveraging partnerships to scale.“
PPI’s goal is to work with young people like this group from Jaffa again and again, over an extended period of time, to support transformative change.
What does that mean? PPI is not the type of program that will work directly with millions of young people in one year any time soon. We prioritize transformative change, and to achieve that, we believe you need to invest in transformative programming – long-term, focused and intentional. Just as a player can’t master ballhandling or jump-shooting without spending plenty of time with a ball in their hands, we believe you can’t change the status quo of a community without spending lots of time with your target audience.
Sounds like a good strategy, right? And it is, but it is not without its challenges, one of the most obvious being that such an intensive program is difficult to bring to scale directly. Dramatically expanding our programs from their current direct reach of about 3,000 to 30,000 or 300,000 would require far more funds and far more coaches and staff. While we would love that challenge, it isn’t realistic to expect it any time soon.
One of PPI – Cyprus’ new partnerships includes a nautical organization.
Enter “leveraging partnerships to scale.” What that means in theory is doubling down on the investment we’ve already made in kids and communities to allow them to have the maximum impact on others. What that means in practice is something like the Jerusalem All Stars, leveraging the platform provided by the Israeli National Basketball League to bring this remarkable team’s success to a much broader audience. Or something like the Interface Olympics and Game of Three Halves, teaming with the governing bodies of the most popular sports in Northern Ireland to provide integrated opportunities to youth who might not ever have them otherwise. Or, in South Africa, asking our coaches and staff to facilitate activities at other community events, spreading our methodology more widely.
Two of our keys to success over the years have been an ability to stay focused on our goals of bridging divides, developing leaders and changing perceptions and a commitment to absolute excellence – whatever we do, we do well. Leveraging partnerships allows us to continue to focus and continue to ensure quality across all our work, while still reaching ever greater numbers. You’ve already seen a great deal of it this summer, and look out for more in the coming months.
Although we have written many times about the courage and determination of the mixed Arab-Jewish All Stars teams of PPI – Middle East, no words can describe the skill, fitness and finesse displayed in this video of their match versus Rehovot. Check it out below. How many three-pointers and steals can you count?
Doha regularly volunteers as an assistant coach with younger PeacePlayers.
Over 50% of the kids shooting hoops and building peace with PeacePlayers International – Middle East are girls. We’ve made it a priority to make sure that Palestinian and Israeli girls are given the opportunity to excel through sport, all the while they are learning to cooperate with their counterparts from “the other side.” This is not a given. Among Palestinian youth, for every 100 boys who play in sports clubs, only 28 girls do the same.[i]
Doha speeds down the court at a Jerusalem-All Stars practice.
In Israel, only about 25 percent of participants in competitive sport are women, a number lower than the average in both the Western world and the world at large. This is the result of “an unsupportive system, lack of appropriate coaches and professionals, [and] a lack of financial and social rewards similar to those that are enjoyed by males.”[ii]This imbalance is most noticeable in the same traditional and conservative communities that suffer most from poverty, where women’s participation in athletics is frowned upon by conservative religious social elements in local society. Given the fact that a strong link has been found between girls’ participation in sport and higher academic achievement and future professional success,[iii] we’ve taken it upon ourselves to bring athletic opportunities to girls who wouldn’t necessarily have access otherwise.
“In the Arab community, they believe that girls should stay at home and clean. But we get to play basketball and meet people from [other places].”
Doha takes part in a workshop led by motivational speaker and entrepreneur Yvonne Davis.
Doha is one such girl, or shall I say young woman. Doha is 16 years old, and in the Palestinian East Jerusalem community from which she hails, sports isn’t something that girls normally get to do. Doha, who has been a part of PPI – ME since our inception in 2005, is an excellent basketball player and this year is starting her second year with the Jerusalem All-Stars, an integrated Palestinian-Israeli team from East and West Jerusalem that competes in the Israel Basketball Association’s youth league. Before the All-Stars entered the league, no Palestinian from East Jerusalem had ever played in the prestigious league. Doha is also a member of the fully integrated Leadership Development Program, and regularly volunteers as an assistant coach with younger PeacePlayers as part of her hands-on leadership training.
It’s not just Doha who’s excited about PeacePlayers, her parents have been bought in as well. “My parents love PeacePlayers and encourage me to go. They love that I’m in sports.” With everything she’s got going on, Doha gets to play basketball and interact with her Israeli peers nearly every day of the week. “I think PeacePlayers is like a second home,” she says. “Home is love and family, and that’s how I feel towards the other girls in PeacePlayers.”
[i] Cultural and Leisure Activities.” Palestinian Children – Issues and Statistics. Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics.
[ii] Darom, Roni. “Women’s Sport in Israel.” Sport and Physical Culture in Israel in the 20th Century Eds. Haim B. Kaufman and Haggay Harif. (Hebrew; Jerusalem: Ben-Tzvi Institute–Wingate Institute, 2002), p. 431.
[iii] Stevenson, Betsey. Beyond the Classroom: Using Title IX to Measure the Return to High School Sports. The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania. 2009. the Return to High School Sports. The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania. 2009. http://bpp.wharton.upenn.edu/betseys/papers/TitleIX.pdf
Hand-in-Hand teammates reacquaint themselves with the court after summer break.
PPI – ME is back from summer break. Not that our summer break was all that much of a break: With the action-packed Building Bridges summer camp, PPI international board trip and loads of MEPI-supported leadership development activities, we indeed did manage to keep ourselves busy over the hot Middle Eastern summer months. But now back to our regularly scheduled programming: This past week, PPI – ME officially launched the 2011-2012 programming year. So far, we’ve launched twice-weekly Basketball and Peace Education Sessions, All-Stars practice (including special athletics training sessions on the beach), and completely integrated Leadership Development Program (LDP) weekly practices.
Girls of the Hand-in-Hand team (comprised of teens studying at Hand-in-Hand School, our home base) at their first practice of the year.
The most widespread activity so far is the Basketball and Peace Education Sessions, in which every children’s team in the Twinned Basketball Clubs (TBC) takes part twice a week. At this stage, TBC teams are practicing in their own communities, with Twinnings expected to start in November. The purpose of this period is to help prepare Palestinian children for the joint encounters, which can be a bit scary for kids who have never met children from the “other” community, kids who have only ever learned about the other side through myths and the media. We help Palestinian and Israeli children become comfortable with the idea of meeting and playing basketball with kids from the other side by helping children combat stereotyping and negative thinking, all the while making sure their basketball is up to speed, so that both teams will be of roughly equal skill level.
The Jerusalem All-Stars, the first ever integrated Palestinian-Israeli team from Jerusalem ever to compete in the Israeli Basketball Association’s youth league, have also started to get a leg up on the competition with intensive pre-season training. More than a month ahead of the start of the season, the All-Stars have been working hard in three practices a week. Two of three weekly practices take place on the beach in Herzliya and are led by star athletic trainer Alon Levy And PPI – ME’s Director of Basketball Operations, Vito Gilic’. In Herzliya the All-Stars train together with Elitzur Holon, an Israeli team in the national league, which last year took the league cup (and included two Palestinian PeacePlayers from East Jerusalem).
The LDP has also reconvened, with weekly Basketball and Leadership Sessions already underway. In the coming weeks, the LDP teens will begin volunteering as assistant coaches in their local communities, and the months that follow will see a weekend retreat and Social Action Projects.
All in all, the year has started with a bang. Stay tuned.
Check out this great video from PPI – Middle East: The Jerusalem All Stars, the first mixed Jewish and Arab teams from Jerusalem to compete in Israel’s elite youth league, show us the power of teamwork! “We are PeacePlayers, mighty, mighty PeacePlayers!”
