PAAAVART Advocated for the Use of Sport to Promote Peaceful Coexistence

 

Sport has been described as a veritable tool in the promotion of peaceful and harmonious coexistence, President of Peace Advancement, Action Against Violence and Rape Foundation Lady Vivien Abara stated this during an event organized by the NGO to marked the international day for sport and development for peace.

The event which had a theme “only together will we play and dance again” took place at Jos Museum Auditorium.

Lady Abara reiterated that sport strengthened social ties and provide sustainable development and peace as well as solidarity and respect through individual’s unique skills and collective power. She said “we can come together and share creative ways to improve our health, wellbeing, our goal and happiness through physical activities like dancing”.

She explained that in celebrating this year event dancing was added because, the foundation was unable to carry out the normal sporting activities because of the restriction put in place due to the Covid 19 pandemic. “This however, provided us the opportunity to invite several other communities across board for them to come together to laugh, discuss and be friends again” she added.

Lady Abara maintained that International Day For Sport And Development For Peace 2021 looked to reaffirmed the place of sport in recovering from the pandemic and beyond, to foster equality, solidarity, communities in team spirit in response to the pandemic, encouraged healthy habit through physical activities and emotional wellbeing and inspire hope through sporting analogy, with collective efforts we aim to strengthened the peaceful coexistence of the people of this state and the country atlarge.

“As we celebrate today I called on all groups and stakeholders in the state to strive for for togetherness to building a unified block of peace, to bridge the gap across all tribes, ethnic group, culture or tribe. Let us continue to play and dance together for development and peace; let us come together and end the fight and leave as one” she noted.    

Resources persons Prince Charles Diction and Kabiru Garba Mai Akwala both said the country need genuine peace and sporting activities are a powerful driver towards harmonious coexistent and nation building.

In a goodwill message The Director General Plateau State Peace Building Agency Joseph Lengman and Matron of the Foundation Professor Patricia Lar of the Department of Microbiology University of Jos both eulogized PAAAVART for organizing the event, while calling on Nigerians to key into the initiatives.

Joseph Lengman noted that the event is very important; saying what the society need to day is social cohesion, noting that over the years the society was too divided, and to repair the fracture relationship and make sure that we understand one another, we need to come together.

He said If there is any event that can push such an agenda is this occasion where you see young people coming together to play to meet people from other religion, tribes and ethnicity this means a lot and that underscores the importance of this event.

Lengman reemphasized that everywhere in the world sport brings people together, noting that sports, arts and music create an opportunity for people to come together. 

 

Professor Patricia Lar said peace is a desire of every community and sport is needed to be organized to allowed room for interaction, saying that sport is indeed a melting point for people coming together. “Peace is a currency for every individual, we need peace to grow, it is very important for the development of our nation. Lack of peace hampers general wellbeing of individuals” she added.   

Other line-up of activities to marked the day was board games and dance competition as while as presentation of awards and certificates.