Founded in 2015 by Scott Howe and Gordon Israel, the Howe International Friendship League (HIFL) is a series of international events with the simple objectives of promoting goodwill and building friendship between cultures around the world through the power of sport.
As part of its mission, it promotes crosscultural sports exchanges while raising funds for local development programs and supporting fragile communities in the most remote parts of the world.
As a Managing Partner and Communications Manager at the Howe International Friendship League (HIFL), we directly supervised all the stages of project creation and development in all its operations, from building a vibrant community of passionate adventurous travelers to organizing exciting sporting events in the remotest locations or developing and implementing a first class communications strategy across all available media channels.
We also oversaw the growth and all ongoing activities of the HIFL capacity building and local development programs held in multiple locations around the globe.
The HI Friendship League has been operating on 4 continents and is often making national headlines on leading media channels. HIFL is about using sports as an icebreaker between tourists and local communities. Organizers strive to create welcoming environments that allow for international participants and local athletes to interact, learn, and form friendships. Events typically combine games and practices between the international and local teams with site visits of the most popular tourist attractions in the country.
We strived to provide the Friendship League with the highest visibility across all media channels in order to keep it growing and thriving over the years while fulfilling its core principle of promoting friendship through the power of sports. It all started by developing a first class communications strategy that would be represent best the spirit of the project. We then had to relentlessly implement our action plan by creating innovative print, web and video communications materials while always coming up with new communications ideas and approaches with the final aim of maximizing HIFL’s exposure as well as expanding our brand’s reach and scope.
HIFL fosters socially inclusive communities through capacity building and local development programs. It supports sports programs for local communities and for individuals with Intellectual Disabilities in every destination visited.
The Friendship League aims to bring lasting changes and perspectives to the lives of remote communities. To our delight the world abounds with populations following alternate social, cultural and economic models throughout all the continents. However, these marginal lifestyles are often jeopardized by the dominant globalized development path and its insatiable appetite for natural resources and lands as well as its move towards greater standardization. HIFL aims to work with local communities to reduce the pressure from global economic development by organizing capacity building and local development programs and by raising awareness about other possible ways of life.
