Photo: jenswenzel-photography.com

When I was nine my cousin invited me to take part in a football camp during the summer holidays. It sounded like it could be fun. I had no idea at the time that this camp would change my life.

The year was 2001, the camp was Football 4 Peace  (although at the time it was called the World Sport Peace Project) and it took place in Iblin, the Arab village in the North of Israel where I live.

I thought I was going to a football camp, but it was so much more. The camp brought together Muslim and Christian children with coaches from the UK who taught us about the importance of different values such as trust and respect. We played trust games which were great fun and really brought us together as a group.

The following year I knew I wanted to go to this summer camp again. This year the camp included children from Misgav, a Jewish town close to Iblin. Until this point, I had never interacted with Jewish children. I wasn’t alone. There were no opportunities for children from Arab and Jewish neighbouring towns and villages to meet. I really wasn’t sure what to expect. Some of my friends couldn’t speak Hebrew. How were we going to communicate?

We had three coaches, one Arab coach, one Jewish coach and a coach from the UK. Instructions were given in three languages and the coaches ensured that all participants understood what to do. They treated us and with respect and kindness. Like the previous year, there was an emphasis on the importance of values. Football 4 Peace has five values – neutrality, equity and inclusion, respect, trust and responsibility. Again, we played a variety of games where we had to trust one another. This was a fun and effective way to break barriers. The fact that some of us were Arab and others Jewish just wasn’t relevant – there was a real sense of togetherness. It is this sense of together that I most appreciated at the camps.

I soon became too old to take part in the camps. I missed them and felt frustrated by the lack of opportunities for Jewish and Arab youngsters to interact. Then three years ago I was asked whether I would be interested in becoming a Football 4 Peace coach. This was a dream come true.

I have been trained in the Football 4 Peace methodology which was developed by the University of Brighton in the UK and the German Sports University Cologne. I have taken English lessons provided by the British Council to help me communicate with the EU coaches.

This is my third year of being a coach and every year I look forward to the camps. They really are the highlight of my year. It is amazing to see just how much the participants get out of the programme. As a coach I see how effective the methodology is at bringing together young people from different backgrounds in a place which is so politically loaded. The emphasis on values stays with you long after the summer ends.

This year, we celebrated 10 years of Football 4 Peace. We had a festival, where the programme founder Geoffrey Whitfield spoke about growing up in the UK, at a time when there was mistrust and hatred between England and Germany. Looking around at the coaches from these countries it was amazing to think that their grandparents had been at war and yet for them this is merely a part of their history. Looking around at those of us from Israel – Jewish and Arab – I hope that our grandchildren, if not our children will feel the same way. Football 4 Peace is one way to ensure this happens.

Shukri Jarjouri is 19 years old and from the Arab village of Iblin in Northern Israel. He has been involved in Football 4 Peace since the first camp in 2001 and is now a Football 4 Peace Coach who will soon start his studies to become a qualified sports teacher and football coach at Wingate in Israel. He has not yet decided whether to take his masters at the University of Brighton or the German Sports University in Cologne.