Ultimate Frisbee with vulnerable youth in Lebanon

GFA BRIDGES has financed a project to introduce Ultimate Frisbee trainings for refugees, orphans and vulnerable children and youth at two informal education centers in the Burj Hammoud and Kahaleh neighborhoods of Beirut, Lebanon. Children are the most vulnerable groups of the more than one million Syrian refugees currently living in Lebanon. They mostly cannot enroll in schools and rarely have an opportunity to play sports.

The project has coached Ultimate Frisbee to children and youth from two informal education centers and provides the centers with the necessary equipment to continue playing. Ultimate is a non-contact team sport played with a flying disc (or Frisbee™) that can be enjoyed by children and youth of all ages and abilities. The game is welcoming and inclusive, and a great platform to develop life skills and social values such as teamwork, leadership, confidence, empathy, etc. Two teams of seven players, both girls and boys, compete on a playing field about the same length as a football field, but more narrow.  At each end of the playing field there is an end zone. Each team defends one end zone. A team scores a goal if one of its players catches the disc in the opposite end zone.

Project activities will introduce 80 refugee, orphans and vulnerable children and youth to Ultimate Frisbee and teach life skills through sport and fun. Following the training sessions, boys and girls from the two centers will meet to play a friendly game. The project will also train Ultimate coaches in Lebanon on how to include life skills to youth through a Training of Trainers provided by German Ultimate players and coaches with many years of expertise. This will create a lasting impact on the vulnerable children who will learn a new sport and have an opportunity to know children from other areas. It will also prepare the Lebanese Ultimate community to accommodate young players from vulnerable backgrounds.

The project was initiated and supported by Johanna von Toggenburg, Robert Roth, Sabine and Andreas Glindemann.

Read short reports on the website of "Deutscher Frisbeesport-Verband e.V." and "Hamburg Ultimate" (German)