In December 2019 Cricket Without Boundaries (CWB) joined 87 top sports organisations to be a signatory to the UNHCR and International Olympic Committee’s Refugee Sports Coalition.

Through being a signatory, we pledged to take active steps to provide safe opportunities for refugees to play sport. Over the past 18 months we have been committed to deliver on our pledge. Last month, UNHCR invited CWB to speak along side the Football Association of Ireland and the International Olympic Committee, at the inaugural UNHCR Refugee Sports Coalition conference to share and discuss with other sporting organisations, how we are supporting refugees.

We were joined by Hana Al Khalidi from Right to Play (RTP) our implementing partners in Jordan, who use play-based learning, to improve the quality of education and social cohesion for vulnerable youth, including refugees.

We discussed how, as part of RTP’s ‘Strengthening Our Schools’ programme, CWB ran a workshop on integrated learning using cricket, and how the skills learned have been implemented by the RTP team to promote cohesion in schools in Jordan’s refugee host communities of Amman, Zarqa and Jordan Valley.

Our key message was emphasising using play and sport as a tool to reduce conflict and social tension and promote inclusion, as well as being an agent for inclusion. Over 5,000 children participated, of which over half were girls and 75% of the coaches who delivered the program were female.