Participatory Learning through Sports with Indigenous Youth

Sport is a crucial platform for youth empowerment and self-development especially among marginalized youth. It has the same kind of unifying component as music or art has. The presentation explores how playing sports can support participatory learning and development with the youth. It focuses on one practical case done at Platfontein, South Africa, where football match was used as a tool for facilitating cross-cultural learning, dialogue of leadership as well as recognition of team members and their skills. These are important capabilities for the youth in everyday life but also when entering to working life. New inclusive tools that support sharing between participants are needed in participatory development. The presentation outlines football match as a method for participatory development and discusses the benefits and limits of such method. The topic is discussed from three perspectives: the facilitator, academic professional doing mobility exchange in SASI (South African San Institute) and the participant, Indigenous youth living in Platfontein. The football match provided fun and active way of learning about itself, others around me and our possibilities. As football game and rules were already familiar to the youth before the match, it was possible to use the match structure to support additional goals like learning about team building. As a result, the presentation will introduce initial guidelines for building practical and inclusive methods for participatory development with the youth.