Play2EDUCATE

Play2EDUCATE cultivates positive relationship development among youth to promote tolerance and foster resilience focused on preventing religious, political, and ethnic extremism, conflict, and violence. More specifically, P2E uses a combination of sport and play-based learning and participant-directed dialogue to facilitate youth development of critical thinking and awareness competence and fundamental life skills that can be utilized throughout life to make decisions related to prosocial behaviors and the safety and security of individuals, families, communities, and countries. P2E originated in 2015 when our Founder, Gena Sturgon, took the idea of using sport for development to the Rotary Club Prishtina International project “A Violence Free Future”. P2E originally functioned as a 2 hour session within VFF’s conferences, with implementation support from international security forces and local Rotaract members. VFF aimed to promote tolerance and inclusion, as a means of countering the religious radicalization and extremism gripping Kosovo’s population, namely the youth. Grounded in P2E’s success at these VFF events, Gena saw an opportunity to further develop P2E into a long-term, sustainable program. In March 2017, P2E was founded based on the combination of Gena's passions for sport for development and cross-cultural and conflict resolution dialogue. Through its work, P2E aims to positively impact the lives of the disenfranchised youth of Kosovo through life skills and prosocial behavior promotion in order to circumvent engagement with various forms of extremism, conflict, and violence. P2E was incorporated in the state of Colorado (USA) in June 2017, and currently its 501(c)3 status is pending. P2E’s Kosovo NGO registration status was granted in August 2017.