By James Innocent
Reconcile International organized a football peace tournament in Yei River County of Central Equatoria State targeting 23 players from eight teams formed, while others drawn from different communities in South Sudan, represent counties and states.
Geri Moses, the program manager for Reconcile International said the tournament is to make communities identify themselves and how they coexist within Yei River County
“This tournament was planned one and half years back and it was planned in such a way we wanted to engage youth to play together and the first tournament we had which was supported by the owner that is Bread for the World , engage clubs within Yei ,but this time we said no let us do it so unique in order to make communities understand themselves to know who there are, and also know how do they coexist, how do they play with other communities that are within Yei River County so that’s what happened and of course as you can see we have eight teams others representing counties and others representing states, they targeted twenty three per club and each club has to give twenty three people and which includes the officials eighteen players and five as officials this are the people they targeted as direct beneficiaries,” he said.
The program manager mentioned that the tournament is specifically to bring peaceful coexistence among people living greater Yei
“This tournament is aimed at promoting peaceful coexistence among communities, as you know; it is unique each one chose to play, even if you from a different county or state you can play but its specifically for greater Yei because they are not selfish they have to share together with the rest of the states in order to promote peacefully coexistence among people in the communities, they brought in for counties of greater Yei which includes Lainya, Morobo , Yei and Kajo-Keji county involving tribes from different states in south sudan living within greater Yei which include upper Nile state , Western Equatoria State, Bar-el-Ghazel state,” he mentions.
Meanwhile the Youth chairperson of Yei River County Johnson Poru Hillary pointed out that it’s a peace tournament that is supported by Reconcile International to promote peaceful coexistence as Yei is known of hosting the 64 tribes including foreigners from different countries.
“It is really a very great peace tournament organized and supported by Reconcile international to looking into it that the young people are brought together for the wobble of peace and to promote peaceful coexistence amongst different communities here in Yei as we all knows that Yei is one the cosmopolitan town in South Sudan comprising of 64 tribes including foreigners from different communities,” he said.
This story was written at Yei freedom square following a game played by Yei county team scoring 6 goals against Western Equatoria state team within Yei and Western Equatoria losing with 1 goal against Yei team.