Volunteers from Ghana win 2015 Samsung GFP Impact Awards

Youngstars Development Initiative, a non-governmental organization, has won this year’s Samsung Generations For Peace (GFP) Award for Impact.

The Samsung GFP Award for Impact is given to a programme that demonstrates an ability to positively affect the beneficiary community, stakeholders and other members of the wider community. It is also awarded for successful local media coverage and local awareness of programme, and for quantitative and qualitative reach of programmes.

The winners of the 2015 Impact Award were volunteers from Ghana for the Catch Them Young Accra Programme. This Sport for Peace Programme for Children targeted 40 school students to address issues of bullying and poor communication between students of different ages and social classes.

In implementing the programme, volunteers got members of the beneficiary community and stakeholders involved. This approach enabled the wider community to learn about the programme, and start to benefit from the programme activities. In addition, the programme received wide coverage with features in the local media.

The award was presented by His Royal Highness Prince Feisal Al Hussein, Founder and Chairman of GFP, and Fadi Awni Abu Shamat, Corporate Marketing Director for Samsung Levant at a ceremony in Jordan.

Countries like Kyrgyzstan, Macedonia and Palestine also won awards for Innovation, Quality, and Sustainability respectively. These four categories are also the key drivers of change for Generations For Peace.

The fifth Generations For Peace Samsung Advanced Training concluded in Amman, Jordan. The six day 2015 Samsung Advanced Training, during which 39 volunteers from 10 countries gained new skills in facilitating peace building programmes in their communities, ended with the annual Awards Dinner on 25 November at the Grand Hyatt Hotel in Amman, Jordan.

HRH Prince Feisal Al Hussein congratulated this year’s award winners, and the nearly 9000 volunteers who have been trained to implement peace building programmes in their communities around the world.

He also presented certificates in recognition of Samsung Levant, supporter of GFP’s work since 2008; the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which supports GFP’s work throughout the MENA region; as well as institutional partner Jordan Olympic Committee, telecommunications partner Orange, logistics partner DHL, and beverage sponsor Coca Cola Jordan.

Generations For Peace (GFP) is a Jordan-based global non-profit organisation founded by HRH Prince Feisal Al Hussein and Sarah Kabbani, dedicated to sustainable peace building and conflict transformation through sport, arts, advocacy, dialogue and empowerment.

By providing unique training and continuous support and mentoring to volunteer leaders of youth, GFP empowers them to lead and cascade change in their communities, promoting active tolerance and responsible citizenship and working at the grass roots to address local issues of conflict and violence.

Different contexts include inter-tribal, inter-ethnic, and inter-religious violence; gender inequality; post-conflict trauma response, reconciliation and reintegration; exclusion of minorities including IDPs, refugees and people with a disability; and challenges of integration in multi-cultural societies. Conflict sensitivity, and the full participation and empowerment of girls and women, are integrated into GFP’s approach.

GFP uses sport as an entry point to engage with children and youth, and our carefully-facilitated sport-based games provide a vehicle for integrated education and behaviour change. In addition to our sport-based approaches, GFP has also developed arts, advocacy, dialogue, and empowerment activities to support conflict transformation with children, youth and adults in different contexts.

In the last seven years, we have trained and mentored more than 8,500 volunteer leaders of youth in 50 countries and territories in the Middle East, Africa, Asia, and Europe. With our support, their ongoing programmes address local issues of conflict and violence, and have touched the lives of more than 216,000 children, youth and adults.

GFP is ranked 32nd in the Top 500 NGOs in the World for 2015 by Global Geneva. The ranking assesses non-governmental organisations according to innovation, impact, and sustainability.

GFP is also the only peace-through-sport organisation officially recognised by the International Olympic Committee.