Day 1, Cali, October 19, 2009

Laurel Miles:

I find myself sitting with Nicky and Owen from Australia, and Lucho and Nino from Colombia on a lovely warm evening in Cali Colombia after our first day of clinics. I am filled with wonder once again at how lucky I have been over the years to be a part of the Ultimate world both in Canada and globally. How did I end up here 5500 kilometers from my home to be included in a project that both satisfies my interest in world understanding and allows me to play my favourite game on a warm sunny day at 1600m above sea level? Sometimes I look over my shoulder wondering when my luck is going to end, but for the most part I recognize that I am very very lucky and just roll with it. Needless to say my lungs have noticed the lack of oxygen at this height but not nearly as much as they did in Bogota, 2600m closer to the stars than Vancouver.

The 10 hour road trip from Bogota to Cali was beautiful and interesting. The mountainous terrain is spectacular and the inventive methods of claiming land and lifestyle from the steep slopes leaves me feeling that the Colombian people are very strong and ingenious. I drove the last two hours of the trip, and packed down my fear of the crazy fluid crisscrossing movement of the traffic that finds red lights to be only a suggestion and the lines on the road to have no significance at all.

Given my lack of interest in public speaking and my insecurities with my second language… the possibility of the 5 minute talk I gave about gender equality and the enjoyment of community in the world of ultimate brought me close to having a heart attack. Instead, I encountered a group of people so interested in learning and so kind and excepting that I stumbled along and managed to say, most, of what I wanted to and I enjoyed myself.



I have had many moments of laughter and I feel supported in my efforts by my fellow coaches and by the ultimate community here. It is an interesting sensation when our participants thank me at the end of a session, because I truly feel the need to thank them for what they brought to the day and to me personally.

Day 1 in Cali

Owen Shepherd:

The first clinic of Project Play Colombia here in Cali was a lot of fun.

The program involved introductions, various frisbee games, talks and discussions. The focuses were Spirit of the Game, Mixed Ultimate and Conflict Resolution. The players are all students at the Javeriana University.

The players were keen participants, offering valuable views on what spirit of the game was, and really bonding as a group during the day.

Some may ask, do players need clinics focussed on Spirit of the Game? Shouldn't Spirit just be something that just emerges in games and is demonstrated by experienced players?

Two episodes convinced me of the value of the approach of this Project. The first was hearing how valuable ultimate had been to teenage war veterans five years ago. Teaching ultimate had been a way for these children to learn to interact with others constructively after years of violence.

The second moment was yesterday, when I asked a local player what skills of ultimate would be the most useful things to teach in the clinics. He said spirit, spirit, spirit. He pointed out there was a need to value spirited play and teach techniques for building it, across much of Colombian ultimate.

Abstract

Colombia is a wonderful country with kind, hard working and passionate people. There are many peace and community building focuses in all the regions of the country. Joining these focuses, a sport with 40 years of history called Ultimate has been used for almost 10 years as means for social integration within the cities and in the nation between different regions (For info on Ultimate: http://wfdf.org/). Our work group started in 2003 and has been able to be part of the educational history led by professional teachers since 1997.

Ultimate arrived to Colombia in 1994 and has been used as a unique tool for the transformation of communities with a low capability of positive dispute resolution. This objectives have been achieved by teaching Ultimate from its fundamentals and essence: respect of yourself, the others and the rules of the game. Project Play Colombia will help the positive establishment of new Ultimate communities working in 6 Colombian cities where the sport is developing during september, october and novemeber 2009.

Context, Colombia

Colombian contemporary society evolved from a violent origin long before its establishment as an autonomous democratic republic in the XIX century. Our territory and its people have been affected by the struggle between military and political powers since the spanish invasion in the XVI century until the present day.

High rates of aggression are registered today in our communities due to a low capability of solving disputes in a positive way. Its main causes are failures in the educational system for generations in the matters of coverage and contents. Sports, recreation and outdoor activities are part of the scenarios where non pacific means for solving disputes are accepted.

The biggest sport in Colombia is soccer. Parents and teachers take it as a great citizen educator and an excellent outdoors group activity. Sometimes during its practice it can generate violence acts in the recreational and professional levels involving athletes and spectators. Ultimate has emerged as a powerful educational tool and an option for building non violent, responsible and equal communities.

External Aid

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Project Play Colombia 2009 will obtain funding from voluntary donations. For currency donations there will be limits. The project´s media systems will inform the way resources are being distributed.

We hope direct donations will cover the direct costs of the project. External donations and additional resources will be used for other expenses, to upgrade the sessions conditions with more equipment and to guarantee the proper nutrition and hydration of all the participants.

Ways to AID the project:

> Money: money donations different from the direct participants donations will be received in two bank accounts. One in Colombia in Colombian Pesos and one in Canada in Canadian Dollars. Min donation in COP $ 10.000, max donation in COP $ 200.000. Min donation in CAD $ 5, max donation in CAD $ 100.

Account numbers will be published in the project information systems; any individual can donate as many times as wished between the established limits.

> Sporting goods and cost reduction: we will be receiving elements donations in sporting equipment, food, hydration and discounts in other direct costs.

> Time: those coaches, writers, documentalists, photographers, videographers, psychologists, anthropologists, social workers, etc. out there, interested in sharing this experience are invited to participate and donate time.

> Other means for participating: we hope that the blogs work as platform for socializing the experience. We are expecting your commentaries, you registration as followers, an image of your organization to add it to the followers network and your participation in surveys.

Topics

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Project Play Colombia 2009 has designed a program with the following elements:

1. Update of official WFDF rules book.
2. Spirit of the game and dispute handling workshops.
3. Mixed Ultimate and community building.
4. Update of offensive tactics and techniques.
5. Update of defensive tactics and techniques.

The project will be developed in clinics scheduled for 2 day - 4hrs sessions.

Target Population and Outreach

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Project Play Colombia 2009 will have as target populations the new communities cores of Colombian Ultimate development. It will work in the regions far from the main cities and in development programs in Bogotá.

In each city juniors, college and clubs programs will be instructed. Man and women between the ages of 16 and 34 will be accepted as participants. As many sessions as needed will be planned in each town. To guarantee proper attention from the instructors, the groups for each session will have no more than 25 people.

So far 6 cities have been identified as the places where the project will take place: Bogota, Cali, Ibague, Neiva, Manizales y Bucaramanga. We are building data bases and opening the invitation. We hope to instruct in more than 6 cities during the project activities calendar.