Cienaga, August 10, 2018
Drummond Ltd., the Reincorporation and Normalization Agency (ARN for the Spanish), and the Municipal Mayor of Cienaga inaugurated the second season of the “building values through games” strategy.
Principles such as equality, non-violence, freedom of expression, active participation, non-discrimination, and care of self and others will be the star players in ‘Golombiao, the Game of Peace.’ The second season will benefit around 600 young people in 6 schools who want to learn values on and off the field.
The launching of the strategy kicks off the tournament in which sports will be the channel for teaching students from the schools Alianza para el Progreso, El Carmen, La Maria, Alfredo Correa de Andreis, Enoc Mendoza and Carlos Garcia Mayorca new forms of relating to each other and how to make good use of their free time in activities that promote getting along with each other.
“Building values through games” has emerged out of an institutional partnership to work on topics related to prevention and guarantees for the rights of teens. In addition to being an arena for recreation and fun, it helps young people reflect in order to strengthen principles, and not just at school. The project’s positive impact is expanded by involving families and the community.
During the inauguration ceremony, each participating school received its sports equipment donated by Drummond Ltd. to make deployment of the strategy possible. The students also enjoyed a video showing the best moments from the first season of the ‘Golombiao’ tournament, which took place in 2017.
“We’re proud to see how the young people who participated last season have been able to apply at their schools, at home, and in their communities the values they learned while playing. And that’s why we have once again joined this institutional partnership,” stated Alvaro Daza, Coordinator of Drummond Ltd.’s Community Relations Department.
In its work with former combatants, the ARN discovered that 40% of all people involved in a reintegration process joined the armed group when they were minors. ARN Coordinator for the Magdalena-Guajira region, Jose Nicolas Wild explained, “That figure just kept on echoing in our heads. It challenged us to not only help former combatants build new life goals and ambitions, but also to dedicate ourselves to prevention with young people, because the most critical age group – the age at which they join armed groups – is between 12 and 13 years of age.”
With this project, Drummond Ltd. reaffirms its belief in the Reincorporation and Normalization Agency’s methodology, which helps prevent recruitment, promotes the rights of children and teens, and develops arenas for having fun with the purpose of strengthening the holistic development of individuals and communities, giving them a new vision for their lives.