Sports Humanitarian Group, Inc. dba Right To Play

Right To Play's most important goal has always been to create the opportunity for as many children as possible access to our exceptional play-based learning programs. Our international programs incorporate a methodology that uses sport and play-based games and activities as tools for learning. These programs aim to foster behaviour change, a complex process that involves much more than simply building knowledge and awareness. It involves developing skills that will help children build and maintain self-esteem, resist peer-pressure, problem-solve and communicate. In order to expand our influence, we aim to double our reach and engage two million children in our play based programs in the coming years. Accordingly, we continue to strive for the development of a sustainable funding base. National offices raise funds and build our brand by partnering with local businesses and athlete ambassadors. By adding more national offices to our team and our programming, we will have the capacity to expand into more countries. Additionally, as pioneers in the field of Sport for Development and Peace, our goal is to ensure every child's right to play, and to provide children living amidst poverty, disease and conflict with the tools they need to plan for and realize a better future. We engage with political decision-makers to show the value of integrating play into national and international development policies. We aim to have a high degree of policy influence on the Sport for Development and Peace Movement internationally.

We will achieve our goal of educating and empowering children by ensuring high-quality programs. When designing our programs, we work with each community to understand the specific challenges and assets they and their children have, tailoring our programs to meet their needs. Through consultation with expert educators, locals and community members, we shape the best possible play programs to facilitate fun learning. Partnerships are an important part of our approach to programming. By collaborating with, and training community leaders, such as teachers, early childhood educators and staff from other non-governmental organizations or community-based organizations, we are able to foster a sense of local ownership that will ensure a lasting and sustainable impact. Our Coaches are trained to use an experiential approach to learning for children and youth to deliver powerful programs. Coaches and other community members create environments that allow children to create positive inner conversations and to have positive experiences. Furthermore, by training local youth and adults as Coaches, we are able to expand the reach of our programs and impart valuable leadership skills to the communities' coming generations. By engaging these spheres of influence, we connect with local institutions and networks who share our values and endorse our child-centred methodology, consequently growing collective support that fosters legislative policy to enhance Sport for Development and Peace.

With over 300 athlete ambassadors, 600 global staff, 6,300 junior leaders, and 13,500 local coaches we are able to deliver high quality programs. We foster a skilled professional team and are committed to the hiring, promotion and growth of talent in order to carry out effective decision making and programming. We train local Coaches, who are either community leaders or teachers, in our specially-designed programs who then become positive role models for individual and community leadership. These Coaches implement our programs based on the needs of their communities. Our programs work because our Coaches help shape the children's social interactions. They bolster their hope and their ability to set goals and envision success. Furthermore, we are fortunate to be supported by a team of more than 300 professional and Olympic athletes from more than 40 countries, who lend us their voices to raise awareness for our cause. By having a strong voice that is consistent about mission and impact, we fully develop a culture aligned with our brand. The performances of each one of our Athlete Ambassadors, both on and off the field of play, motivate our supporters to inspire children in our programs.

Each of our 7 national offices serve as fundraising centers by raising funds from specific funding pools: Institutions, high net worth individuals, corporations, and targeted mass markets. Each office is primarily responsible in a single country for acquisition and stewarding all key donor relationships in these selected pools. By having national offices around the world, we can diversify our donors and maximize our potential gains. In terms of funding our expanded programming, we promote excellence in our stewardship model in order to meet our aspirations. We have a fully developed stewardship plan for all funding pools and centres, integrated across markets. Additionally, we utilize quality technology which enables enhanced and consistent donor engagement, stewardship and retention as well.

Through our programs, we're seeing improved academic performance, increased participation and attendance in schools, reduced violence, heightened awareness and steps taken to prevent disease—all through the power of play. Through play we have taught children how to resolve conflict, accept others and create a peaceful community. Using our specially-designed, peace building games, our Coaches teach children how to respect other cultures and religions. For instance, 85% of children would not take revenge when faced with a case of peer initiated conflicted when compared to children who didn't participate in RTP programs (Results from Benin, Mali, and Ghana Evaluation 2009). Additionally, 84% of children report knowing how to solve a peer-related conflict peacefully (Results from Liberia Evaluation 2010). Formerly disruptive children are now demonstrating positive behaviours and becoming leaders within their classrooms. 93% of children reported positive leadership skills compared to 78% non-participating children in our programs (Results from Uganda Evaluation 2011). A report from Uganda reveals children participating in our programs achieve significantly higher scores in evaluations of life skills development than non-participating children as well. Regardless of how high caliber our programs are, we always have a primary focus on enhancing our education quality. We continuously aspire to maximize our social impact with measurable results. Consequently, we plan on identifying and using more widely accepted and validated tools for measuring positive child development. We will also define learning evaluations to better understand effectiveness in emerging program areas.
Additionally, we aim to shape the positive reputation of Right To Play as the leading global authority in the Sport for Development movement. By becoming the global leader in advocating for Sports for Development and Peace we can leverage our resources to foster the creation of a sustainable movement. Right To Play will engage governments directly and raise awareness amongst the public and civil society to advocate for policy change supporting sport and play and our humanitarian context programs will be a growing priority.