The power of sport to inhibit conflict and promote cohesion has become increasingly appreciated by the people of South Sudan.

According to the UNICEF statistics; approximately 900,000 children have been internally displaced since conflict re-erupted in December of 2013.

UNICEF stats further show that more than 13,000 children are missing, have been separated from their families or are unaccompanied. Over half the country's children are out of school, this is the highest proportion of out-of-school children in the world.

Bearing this in mind, the Trust Link sports club, opened a sports academy with a football based programme with an emphasis on building peace and harmony amongst the children of South Sudan.

“We have been using the academy to try to make people to understand that we want to use football to build peace in the nation,” said, Patrick Chima Ani, a Trust Link coach.

The Trust Link club is drawing on the expertise of both male and female coaches to groom a generation of children that understand and amplify the powers of diversity and the importance of sports as a tool for enhancing peace.

“The football we are playing is to unite us and even the spectator watch the trust that we have, we have to trust each other in order to promote peace,” said one of the children participating in the programme.

The children taking part in the activity are drawn from different parts of the country and brought together on one football pitch to interact and compete against each other. 

One of the coaches, taking part all the way from Nigeria, said that the academy also aims to prepare the children for regional and international engagements. He explained, “As a coach in a foreign land I have been trying to teach them some good skills to make sure that they learn the game in order to move forward in their (possible) football career.”

Juliet Sanike, a coach for the girls’ football team said that the academy is leveling the playing field by engaging girls, breaking the long-standing stereotypes and culture barriers that hold girls back.

A team from the UNMISS CPI Section’s Outreach Unit attended one of the games in Juba and witnessed, first-hand, the efforts of the young boys and girls playing their hearts out on the pitch in the name of unification and peace.  The CPI Unit also took time to brief the academy and its members on the mandate of the UN Mission and encouraged them to continue to use sports to unite communities.