Photo: Ian Wilkinson QC, Member of the Organizing Committee of Masters and Celebrities, Clive ‘Busy’ Campbell President of Masters and Celebrities, Dr. Elizabeth Ward Chairperson for the Violence Prevention Alliance, Wayne Shaw, President of KSAFA, Mrs Lorna Bell widow of Jackie Bell, Nick Ziadie, son of Dennis Ziadie.
The thirty first staging of the Bell-Ziadie Memorial Football Festival put on by Masters and Celebrities, will take place at Winchester Park today. The event which helps to raise funds for charity, will see four teams playing in a round robin format beginning at 2pm. The four competing teams are the Usain Bolt “A” team, St. Georges College XI, Masters and Entertainers and Christian Ambassadors.
Speaking at the launch, Dr. Elizabeth Ward, Chairperson for the Violence Prevention Alliance, emphasized the importance that football plays in defusing tension among our youth in Jamaica.
“Football is one of the most important ways of reaching our youth in Jamaica and it has the greatest potential for changing the face of the country, the sides of the country that we care about from time to time but we are not thrilled with. If we want to build peace in this country and engage our male youth and keep them safe, I would tell you that football is the safest and strongest route that we can proceed on,” she said.
Ward called for flexibility in our approach as we use the sport to impact the lives of the most ‘at risk’ youth.
“I have been working with Busy Campbell now for about five years. Football really does bring us together, but sometimes we have to reshape what we do, we have to make sure we have a clear outlook and strategies, and we have to be willing to change some things.
“I think the way we train our football coaches, the way we organize our football fields and the way we organize subsidiary football fields is very important and can make a huge difference, not only in our football but in our whole socio-economic and day to day living for peace.”
The peace advocate explained how football was used to help defuse tension in the Rockfort community a few weeks ago.
“September 21st was International Peace Day and we were trying to calm down Rockfort. I went to Windward Road Primary and All-Age School and the Principal took me to the back of the school and he said that they use this football field for all kinds of things, anyone can come and play. Every year they meet with the guys from within the community and decide how they are going to be able to use the field and every year no matter what, they allow them to come in and play football once they follow the rules. That keeps peace, whenever there is trouble we can sort it out on a football field.”
With a lot of the violence in these communities taking place at night, Ward suggested that lights be provided at some of the fields so that the young men can have active positive engagement even at midnight.
“If you can get lights, if you can get solar lights, midnight football would keep our young people off the streets. Farm Heights, Mount Salem everywhere you go, the football is the means that we can go, so I really suggest that we can do more with our coaches, we can do more with our games we can do more with our participants, to set a new standard of peace building. Just as how we have been able to move forward with football, get to the World Cup, can you imagine if we could get one day, one goal, peace?,” she asked.
“Without peace in our communities there will be no peace in our country, meaningful social intervention is a must, schoolboys and girls cannot continue to stab each other. Schoolboys can no longer be led to believe that they must become baby fathers,” came the impassioned plea from event organizer Clive ‘Busy’ Campbell.
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