Make a choice for sports and games that are moderately competitive

Of course, sport is very competitive. It has a tendency to become highly emotional, certainly when loss is at stake. I have failed - I am a failure. Almost all games are competitive. Try and make the games non-competitive. If there is only one challenge, then that is the challenge. Incidentally, team sports are always preferable above individual sports. You must work together and you win or you lose together. And in doing so, you support one another. (professor Joop de Jong, Transcultural Psychosocial Organisation)

There may be an element of competitiveness involved, if only because it helps channel aggressive impulses in a socialised manner. You must certainly not try and avoid competition at all cost. But competition should not become dominant. (professor Wolters)

Get ethnic groups to play with each other, not against each other

When you are working with different tribes, or ethnic groups, who have been at war with each other and may have to co-exist amidst tension in a refugee camp, your programme must take this into account. Let them for instance not play games against each other but oblige them to work together in a team. For instance, in our project, you had to have at least three persons of another ethnicity in your team, otherwise your participation would not be guaranteed. (Moniek Loeffen. She did work in sports development projects for SCORE and FASD)

Be careful with contact sports

When working with adolescents you must be careful when doing sports that may involve a lot of physical contact. The balance between distance and proximity in children and adolescents is very important, especially when they may have been mistreated or abused.

Pieter van der Houwen