Using Games and Sporting Activities to Teach Children about Global Issues

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Dina Buchbinder Auron is among 15 youth in Mexico honored with the 2010 Premio UVM por el Desarrollo Social (UVM Prize for Social Development). The prize celebrates and supports young Mexican social entrepreneurs who are using their energy and creativity to improve their communities and country.  

In 2000, Mexico, along with 188 other nations, committed to work toward eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) established by the United Nations. The MDGs outlined an ambitious agenda for ending poverty, ensuring universal education, improving health, and promoting environmental sustainability and gender equality—all by a target date of 2015.

Recognizing that most young people in her native Mexico had never heard of the MDGs, Dina Buchbinder Auron took action. Her solution: use play and sporting activities as a way of educating children and youth, ages 6 to 14, about critical issues facing their local and global communities.

In 2007, Dina co-founded Deport-es para Compartir (DpC), which in English means, “Sharing the Joy of Sports.” Its work rests on three pillars: thinking, acting, and sharing. Participants are encouraged to think about the relevance of sports and physical activity to their daily lives. Next, each acts out what physical activity means to them through a series of interactive workshops. And lastly, each contributes symbols (e.g., artwork and letters) representing his or her culture and beliefs to a treasure box that they share with youth in other communities. 

“DpC promotes values such as teamwork, fairness, and respect for differences,” says Dina, “while also using sports to teach children the importance of healthy lifestyles. A key goal is engaging youth as active citizens and instilling in them the belief that they can solve problems by working together.”

One DpC game, “Doctor Tag,” explores the MDG related to preventing HIV/AIDS, malaria, and other diseases. The game begins with players being educated about health issues facing young people in Brazil. Following, participants separate into two teams, with each assigning a captain to serve as doctor. The object of the game is for players to avoid being hit by a ball symbolizing a disease. As the game progresses, players share their thoughts and feelings about their experience and how it relates to global health.

As of early 2009, DpC had reached over 12,500 children living in marginalized rural and urban communities. Participants have been found to demonstrate greater teamwork, healthier behaviors, and increased awareness of the challenges that children, as global citizens, face as well as their role in developing solutions.

To learn more about Dina’s work, visit www.deportesparacompartir.org.mx.

 

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dina buchbinder sports for sharing yan national institute sport for development