OFC President David Chung, General Secretary Tai Nicholas and Head of Social Responsibility Franck Castillo attended the four-day meeting which brought together youth leaders from 11 Commonwealth countries across the Pacific and was organised by the Commonwealth Youth Programme.
President Chung says it offered the perfect opportunity to share key outcomes from Just Play.
“OFC is recognised as one of the leading organisations that uses sport for development in the Pacific and we are delighted to be part of this conference to share our experiences with the future leaders of tomorrow,” President Chung says.
The development work of OFC was noted in the official communiqué released after the conference which stated:
“Young leaders acknowledged sports as a tool for youth development and welcomed OFC’s ‘Just Play’ initiative and the Pacific Youth and Sports Conference held in Auckland, New Zealand 2010.”
The inaugural Pacific Youth and Sports Conference (PYASC) was hosted by OFC in Manukau during March last year and brought together 1000 young people from across the region to look at ways in which sport can be used as a tool to bring about positive social change.
Just Play is a unique grassroots programme that promotes physical activity for primary-aged children while encouraging community involvement and healthy living.
Developed by the OFC social responsibility and technical departments, Just Play was launched in Tonga in October 2009 and has since been introduced in Vanuatu, Tahiti, Solomon Islands, Cook Islands, Samoa, Papua New Guinea, Fiji and Auckland, New Zealand.
As leader of the project, Castillo made a presentation in Brisbane on the progress of Just Play including a recently completed external report showing the positive impact it has had on Pacific communities.
“As part of OFC’s commitment to achieving positive change for children, we recently commissioned an external review of Just Play,” Castillo says.
“The review findings show that there have been huge benefits for the more than 40,000 children who have participated.”
Importantly, Castillo says Just Play is in line with the Millennium Development Goals which were established by the United Nations (UN) in September 2000.
The UN aims to meet the eight goals by 2015 and Just Play is targeting several of them, such as the promotion of education, gender equality and global partnerships.
“The percentage of girls involved in Just Play is 41 per cent which is really encouraging. In addition, results have shown that children who participate in Just Play are more motivated to go to school and are able to concentrate in class.”
Castillo says Just Play also incorporates educational resources to teach children about health issues such as malaria and aids.
All of these examples were presented in depth during the conference, which ran from Monday to Thursday last week.
OFC will continue to work closely with UEFA and the Government of Australia – through its agencies the Australian Agency for International Development (AusAID) and the Australian Sports Commission (ASC) – to roll out the Just Play programme across the Pacific. The Australian Government has shown its support to the project by contributing AU$4million.
The confederation has also been working in New Zealand with Special Olympics (NZ) on a Just Play programme for people with mental disabilities and will launch the new initiative in Samoa this month.

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