Generation Amazing’s master coaches delivered ‘Sports for Development’ Education seminars to over 20 community professionals from international and local NGOs, including Save the Children, the Danish Refugee Council, Mouvement Social, Himaya and Shift. After completing the seminars, the participants were provided with a playbook of resources, including activities and lesson plans needed to deliver the programme to over 150 vulnerable youth over the next eight months.
The three-day training included GA’s ‘Psycho-social support and Mental well-being’ curriculum tailored to the unique experience and challenges faced by children who resort to negative coping mechanisms such as employment and school drop-outs. The sessions were delivered in coordination with Rene Moawad Foundation, a leading organization in promoting social, economic and rural development in Lebanon and the MENA region who have hosted the sessions in their campus in Mejdlaya.
“Generation Amazing is committed to strengthening the capacity of NGOs working with some of the most underserved and at-risk children and youth globally,” said Nasser Al-Khori, Executive Director of Generation Amazing Foundation. “We use the ‘Transformative Power of Sports’ to design specifically tailored programmes to provide marginalised children and youth with the opportunity to develop life skills and social emotional learning in order to reach their full potential.”
“Given the severe social ramifications of the compounding crisis Lebanon has been facing since 2018, we see Generation Amazing’s Sports for Development’s innovative approaches married with Nudge Lebanon’s evidence-based and behavioural research as a powerful and symbiotic tool addressing the negative coping mechanisms greatly affecting youth in emergency contexts. This work not only empowers local actors as agents of change, but also relies on rigorous monitoring and evaluation approaches to generate lessons learned for potential scale-up.” – Aya Haidar, Vice President and Executive Director at Nudge Lebanon
Through sport, physical activity, and play, trainers were taught how to lead youth in activities that promote and nurture positive behaviours and build life skills and social emotional learning that will support them throughout their lives. By leveraging sport’s unifying power as well as physical and psycho-social benefits, trained facilitators can influence positive social change and empower young people in need, who are then inspired to “pass it on” to the wider community.
A trainee shared her thoughts about the training saying, "this is our first time participating in such an innovative training session, which truly challenges conventional thinking. The Sports for Development program enlightened us on leveraging sports as a catalyst for nurturing life skills and shaping personalities among children and youth. Particularly enlightening was the exploration of the psychosocial component, revealing the potential of sports to aid those who have endured physical and mental trauma. While we wished the duration of the training was longer, armed with newfound tools and activities, we eagerly anticipate integrating them into our sessions with the children until our next opportunity for training arises."
