Will Okumu is the founder of Awasi Multi Youth Group. Read all of Will's blog posts.

PeacePlayers International is an international nonprofit organization that uses the game of basketball to unite, educate and inspire young people and their communities in South Africa, Northern Ireland, Israel and the West Bank, and Cyprus, primarily through a program called the “Twinned Basketball Clubs” – basketball teams that integrate children from both sides of long-standing historical divides. The following peice is contributed by Brian Cognato, Development and Communications Associate at PeacePlayers.

ABOVE PHOTO: PPI's curriculum uses drills like this one, practiced in this photo by PPI participants in Israel, to illustrate methods of conflict resolution.

PHOTO: courtesy of Boxgirls International

You've probably heard of sports being used as a tool of social change, to bring people together and to build the skills in youth that they will need later in their lives. Sport - most notably football/soccer, and cricket in South Asia - has also often been employed to bring communities in tension together. But I've never before heard of basketball being used to build peace, especially in countries not known for a basketball culture.

J.D. Walsh, a former basketball player and resident of New York, is travelling the world to encourage children in difficult circumstanbces to play basketball, including in places balanced on the knife-edge such as Kashmir, and Israel and Palestine. Read about his work in Kashmir here, where basketball has made a difference to many children's lives. Similarly, in Israel and Palestine, he has played with Arab and Jewish children, witnessing firsthand the power of basketball as mediation.