The 2013 Borah Symposium has wrapped and Laura Thomas, educational initiatives coordinator for Right To Play Canada, said she was glad to be a part of the 65-year-old event.
University of Idaho students participate in all-inclusive warm-ups led by Ben Gucciardi, founder of Soccer Without Borders. Mr. Gucciardi taught UI students how to break language and cultural barriers through sports Wednesday afternoon in the Kibbie Dome. The session was part of the 2013 Borah Symposium, put on by the Martin Institute.
“I think that everyone we’ve met and engaged with has been really enthusiastic,” Thomas said.
Right To Play is an international organization that teaches life skills and healthy behaviors to disadvantaged youth through games and sports, while cultivating social impacts in the children’s communities. The organization has branches in Canada, the U.S., the United Kingdom, Switzerland and other areas and has worked in nations within Africa, the Middle East, Latin America and other regions.
Thomas said she hopes people will take away the value of play and its exploration from the Right To Play discussions. She said she doesn’t always get to employ games in her presentations at other venues, but the symposium offered her the opportunity to use the Kibbie Dome for a few games.
“The advantage to this is having it built into what we’re doing,” she said. “It’s a dream to be able to play the games that you’re talking about. It’s just so much more effective and so much more fun.”
Thomas likes having individual and group conversations with students and youth, she said, and she likes their passion. She said she appreciated that the symposium brought together three separate non-governmental organizations — Right To Play, Fields of Growth International and Soccer Without Borders — and a university with a lot of growth and curious people is a good place to have conversations on creative, comprehensive issues.
Dee Malchow, commentator for the symposium’s Monday evening film, “One Goal”– a documentary that chronicled an amputee soccer program Malchow initiated in Sierra Leone in 2001– said she was pleased with the week’s lineup of speakers and organizations. She said the various presenters represented valuable efforts to cultivate peace and post-conflict rehabilitation, particularly for individuals who lack hope.
“I am extremely impressed with the variety of people they’ve brought in,” Malchow said. “(Sometimes) after especially a very devastating thing (in which) everything is lost, including portions of your body, all of your family and home, you feel like ‘what’s the point?’ But to get people back together in sport and in play … it’s very encouraging.”
Kevin Dugan, founder and executive director of Fields of Growth International — an organization that uses lacrosse as a platform for community leadership and service — said the “One Goal” film was inspiring and he has enjoyed learning from his fellow presenters and colleagues. He said he was pleased with the participation at the Tuesday NGO panel.
“The questions, the engagement from and interest from the students, faculty and staff who were here were really impressive, and very well representative of the University of Idaho and the Borah Symposium in general,” Dugan said. “I thought it was really positive, and well attended.”
Thomas said Tuesday’s panel discussion was her favorite session because she could discover the connections and differences among the NGOs and it’s good to bring such wide exposure of ideas and efforts to students. She was pleased with everyone’s involvement.
“I think it’s a fantastic symposium,” Thomas said. “The incredible energy from all of the organizers — students, staff, faculty — has blown all of us away … The energy of the campus is incredible too, so I’m just thrilled to be here.”
Matt Maw can be reached at [email protected]