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Sport for Social Development is a method of bringing about social change through the use of sports. Sport refers to the physical activity and development is any individual, health, social,economic, etc. benefits. Sport for is used as a tool for peace and development.The programs use sport to help children learn lifelong skills as an incentive for the children to improve their scholarship. Sport is used as a tool to reach personal and community goals. Most organizations utilizing this method are geared towards underprivileged children and teenagers in urban areas.

Advantages of Sports to Promote Youth Development
Far-reaching and ever-present, sport is a common denominator for people across the globe. Since the advent of modern Olympics in 1896, athletes have shown that sports enable people to come together in an effort to bring about global peace and to share a desire for self-improvement. Non-profit sports programs aiming to educate through similar means are part of an up and coming movement, however. Through sport, children learn sportsmanship and other life skills. Youth sport can help them grow towards positive development and good relationships with others. Sport is a tool utilized to get young people involved in their communities. Positive peer relationships are also encouraged through coaching as well as the physical activity, this leads to youth feeling included among other young people. Through being involved in sports youth can gain self-esteem when they are enjoying the experience of taking part in a sport. Sports help them gain lifelong skills and want to do better in the classroom as well. Involvement in sports have been related to one having better cognitive functioning as well as higher grades and rest scores, satisfaction in school, engagement in school, aspirations for college, and lower dropout rates. Also, according to the Official Website of the Olympic Movement, being surrounded by a supportive group of people with similar goals, as in playing a sport, “can alleviate the negative effects of poverty.” Non-profit organizations are founded in urban areas affected by poverty to help underprivileged children by creating an environment to unite people of any gender, race, religious view, or socio-economic background.

Team-Up for Youth
Team-Up believes in the power of sports to help children learn and grow socially, emotionally, and physically. This organization was founded in 2001 and they want to support the healthy development of youth through strengthening and expanding after school sports programs in a low-income community in the San Francisco Bay Area. They make physical activity programs accessible in their neighborhood so that these children can socially, emotionally, and physical make improvements. The program has many components including: training and education, coaching corps, grant making, public policy, and knowledge creation and sharing. Team-Up receives substantial funding through the Evelyn & Walter Haas Jr. Fund and the San Francisco Foundation.

CityLax, Inc.
CityLax is based in New York City. Since the organization started in 2005, it has described itself as "school-centric." CityLax functions on the idea that schools are the best environment for students and athletes alike to build on their abilities and work towards self-improvement. The organization brings lacrosse into the public school sphere to provide more opportunities to learn, both on and off the field.

Project GOAL
Project GOAL (Greater Opportunities for Athletes to Learn) is located in Central Falls, RI, just outside of Providence. Project GOAL was founded in October 2004 with just 20 children involved. It has since tripled in size. In a personal interview, Darius Shirzadi, Co-Founder and Executive Director of Project GOAL, emphasized that by playing soccer children learn "respect, responsibility, and accountability." The organization uses soccer to encourage team members to work towards academic improvement. In doing so, the team members acquire new lifelong abilities. 97% of participating students have gone on to become the ﬁrst in their families to attend college.

Play for Life International
Play for Life International, founded in 2007, helps over 700 children per year. The organization provides a secure community for at-risk children. As stated on the website, "We give children a safe place to play while fighting the battle of idle time."

Global organizations
Sport for Social Development is a worldwide initiative.

Sports PLUS Global
This is an international global organization that gives educational training to communities and programs through sports and promoting positive human development and social change. Since 1984, Sports PLUS has reached over five thousand children and trained two thousand coaches and educators in camps and after-school programs throughout the United States, Cyprus, Canada, and Hong Kong. Their PLUS model has twelve essential steps that communities can use. The steps develop respectful relationships and an understanding of how children learn in groups.

Cricket for Change
Cricket for Change, founded in 1981 in the UK, has had thirty years of impacting the lives of disadvantaged children.

Hoops 4 Hope
Hoops 4 Hope is a non-profit organization in South Africa that uses basketball to help children from underserved areas become proactive leaders in their individual lives and in their communities. It has been in existence for over 15 years. Hoops 4 Hope in conjunction with its sister organization Soccer 4 Hope has given 10,000 children the opportunity to participate in sports.

Peace Players International
Peace Players International has been working for almost a decade "to unite, educate and inspire young people in divided communities through basketball." There are 52,000 children involved in South Africa, Northern Ireland, Israel and the West Bank, and Cyprus.

Right to Play
Right to Play is an international organization that has programs in a variety of countries around the world, including Botswana, Pakistan, Thailand, and Peru. The organization was founded in 1992 and has since created a global network of support and commitment to underprivileged children by Olympic athletes and charitable organizations such as UNICEF.

Funding for Youth Development
Building extensive networks in the private, governmental and non-governmental sectors in addition to composing a solid organisational framework and acquiring the appropriate resources is the recipe to success. There are foundations internationally that offer grants.