“We feel that play is a great way to get the chance to live a healthy living with a community. The participants get the chance to release their stress and enjoy through play.” —Arzoo Shakir, PFP India Trainer
With 35 youngsters from Kolkata, India, the Disciples for Peace Club celebrated the Compassion Games Global Unity Games: Building Bridges.
"We shared lots of energizer games like As you like it, 8-4-2-1, Watermelon, and Walk and Stop," said Arzoo. "These children were very cooperative.” Her team and the participants could not get enough of the dynamism, creativity, and fun cooperative games brought to them.
In a global play scale, building bridges across the divided socio-economic and cultural-political sectors, is not a mere physical activity. Connecting children and youth with unique personalities and family backgrounds is not easy. In experiential learning, a deeper connection takes place among children and facilitators. Building relationships is in the heart of every PFP activity. And with facilitators like Arzoo bringing the PFP mission and vision, communities become more aware of the importance of concepts such as inclusion, cooperation, and most especially compassion.
“Compassion is important during Play for Peace because we are able to build better relationships with others. Compassion helps us to create peace in our community,” she said. According to Arzoo, during sessions, children helped each other and showed kindness to one another while playing, using PFP core values to understand and show compassion. Creating better relationships through vibrant play is a rewarding experience for the facilitators, youth and the whole community. Facilitators share a piece of themselves whenever they impart a new learning. They work with the the young ones so that they are equipped with more love, joy, and peace in their hearts to share with the world around them. And what a reward it is to give compassion, and share and accept compassion in return. Compassion is an antidote to loneliness, fear and pain. It is a healer to anyone. In a child’s world of play, we see compassion at its purest.