Peace awareness for the Youth

On Saturday, 13th July, International Peace Youth Group (IPYG) and United Muslim Migrants Association (UMMA) centre held a friendly Peace Soccer at UMMA Centre’s sports hall. Over 40 youths altogether from IPYG and UMMA Centre participated in the soccer match. UMMA Centre, a muslim community located in Doncaster, Melbourne, Australia, have been working together with HWPL and IPYG for the past two years.

The Peace Soccer was held in conjunction with HWPL’s 50th WARP Office interfaith dialogue. The interfaith dialogue was held 2 hours beforehand, with Imam Muddasser Dhedhy of UMMA Centre, was in presence representing Muslim Faith. The IPYG Peace Soccer as one of the HWPL’s Legislate Peace Campaign was the 2nd time IPYG held with UMMA Centre.

Peace Soccer is an initiative made my IPYG last year, and it focuses on playing soccer with other communities around Melbourne. The purpose of Peace Soccer is to increase the awareness of peace for the youth, so that the youth of Melbourne can be more involved in building peace for the future. The event started by dividing teams of 8-10 people in each teams. As it is a peace event, youth from both sides mixes together so that they can interact more with each other. A mix of competitive and friendliness was shown from the youth as some of the games went to penalties to decide the winners.

The soccer was countinously played for around 1.5 hours until the Isha'a prayer for the Muslim. After the prayer, the youth came together for a short sharing by one of the Youth Leader of UMMA centre. He shared briefly regarding the 5 pillars of Islam and the values of having Muslim faith. The content was very light and easy to understand of Islam faith and also their views towards Peace and Harmony. He also thanked HWPL and IPYG for coming and listening to their muslim teachings although they are from different cultures and faiths. Ariq Quazi, UMMA Youth representative, also thanked IPYG for taking their time on the weekend and to always trying to promote harmony through their peace activities.

The event concluded by having dinner together among the youth of IPYG and UMMA centre. Pizzas and drinks were bought and shared together. There were lots of laughs and discussion as everyone were hungry after a game of soccer.

IPYG appreciate UMMA centre for always opening up their community and working together both with HWPL and IPYG in their peace activities. As it says in DPCW Article 10, Spreading the Culture of Peace, IPYG hopes that through Peace soccer, other communities and faiths could also join this peace activity to build respect and harmony within eachother. IPYG hopes that they can continuously work together with everyone to achieve peace in Australia and also in the world.