| Description: | Who We Are: Right To Play is an athlete-driven international humanitarian organization that uses sport and play as a tool for the development of children and youth in the most disadvantaged areas of the world. Right To Play is committed to improving the lives of these children and to strengthening their communities by translating the best practices of sport and play into opportunities to promote development, health and peace.
What We Do: Right To Play programs foster the healthy physical, social and emotional development of children and build safer and stronger communities. Everyday we witness the positive impact sport has on refugee children, former child combatants, children with a disability, and young people at risk or orphaned by HIVAIDS or war. Right To Play’s guiding principals are inclusion, which recognizes the importance of children who may be marginalized for reasons of gender, religion, ability, ethnicity, disability, or social background; and sustainability, which ensures lasting impact of our programs.
Happier, Educated Children: Well designed sport and play programs are a fun way to guide children on a positive path to healthy development. In addition to the physical benefits, sport and play programs enhance holistic development, help foster resilience, and create a meaningful connection to adults. Sport and play also teach important values and life skills including leadership skills, teamwork, fair play, conflict resolution, self-esteem, communication, commitment, respect, and integrity.
Safer, More Peaceful Communities and Sustained Impact: Right To Play works closely with communities to help set up the networks and infrastructure necessary to support sustainable local ownership of our sport and play programs. Right To Play also trains local youth to be Local Coaches to expand the reach of our programs and to impart valuable leadership skills to the next generation.
Our Programs: The focus of our SportWorks program is child and community development, while our SportHealth programs leverage the convening and influencing power of sport to provide health education and encourage healthy lifestyle behaviours. For example, SportHealth teaches the importance of vaccinations, as well as prevention of TB, Malaria and HIV/AIDS.
Where We Work: Our programs are currently implemented in 23 countries: Azerbaijan, Benin, Chad, Ethiopia, Ghana, Guinea, Indonesia, Israel, Lebanon, Liberia, Mali, Mozambique, Pakistan, Palestinian Territories, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, Sri Lanka, Sudan, Tanzania, Thailand, Uganda, UAE, and Zambia.
A Global Network of International Volunteers: Right To Play engages and trains Local and International Volunteers who work with communities to implement our programs. Seventy seven International Volunteers were sent to the field in 2005, and together with Local Coaches, reached approximately 500,000 children and youth on a weekly basis.
Look after yourself, look after one another: This is the philosophy that guides Right To Play. Through our sport and play programs we believe we can empower children and communities to look after themselves and each other. In everything we do, we emphasize the best practices of sport and play and our organizational values optimism, respect, compassion, courage, leadership, inspiration and joy.
An International Team of Athlete Ambassadors: Right To Play is supported by an international team of Olympic, Paralympic and professional athletes who generously donate their time to give back through sport. The support of these athletes inspires children and helps raise awareness of the humanitarian potential of sport at both the local and inter-national levels. Led by four-time Olympic Gold Medalist, and Right To Play President and CEO Johann Olav Koss, our Athlete Ambassadors include Wayne Gretzky, Dikembe Mutombo, Anni Friesinger, Haile Gebrselassie, Ian Thorpe and many more.
Experienced Implementing Partners: United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, UNICEF, UNESCO, World Health Organization, Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization, the Vaccine Fund, CARE International, the International Red Cross, the Global Measles Initiative, The Peres Center for Peace, UNRWA, INSAN Foundation (Pakistan), EMIMA (Tanzania), and Aide et Action (Benin).
Generous Funding Partners: Canadian Heritage, Canadian International Development Agency, US Department of State, United States Agency for International Development (USAID) - the CORE Initiative and the American Refugee Committee, Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Royal Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation, Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation, UNICEF, the Robert Ross Foundation and a variety of other foundations and private sector supporters.
A Global Leader in Sport for Development and Peace: Right To Play is committed to every child’s right to play and takes an active role in research and policy development in this area. Our aim is to engage leaders on all sides of development, sport, business and media to ensure every child benefits from the positive power of sport and play.
Headquartered in Toronto, Canada, Right To Play has national offices in Switzerland, the Netherlands, Norway, USA, the United Kingdom, Canada, UAE, and Italy. |