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Join the 47th session of the Human Rights Council on the potential of leveraging sport and the Olympic ideal for promoting human rights for young people.

When: 7 July, 10am - 12pm CEST

Where: Palais des Nations, Geneva, and Zoom (will be webcasted and archived on http://webtv.un.org)

Since their inception in 776 BCE, the concept of the Olympic Games has been to promote peace, given that thanks to the Olympic Truce conflicts were suspended for the duration of the Games in Olympia. In the same vein, sport and the Olympic ideal can be an invaluable tool for the promotion of human rights, development, conciliation and dialogue, and in particular for young people who are involved in practicing sports. Sport education and the values that sports carry with them are of paramount importance to this aim and this suggests that sport and the Olympic ideal can have an increased leveraging potential for promoting human rights for young people. 

The panel discussion will offer an opportunity to identify good practices, challenges and opportunities in that respect, with a focus on:

• The role of sport in promoting human rights for young people, its impact and how it can be optimized
• How sport can further the rights of young people in society, becoming an instrument of empowerment
• How major sporting events can be a welcoming environment in order to promote awareness and a better understanding of human rights both by and for young people without any form of discrimination
• Suggestions, good practices and practical examples of how to leverage sport and the Olympic ideal for the promotion of human rights for young people

Chair: H.E. Ms. Monique T.G. Van Daalen, Vice-President of the Human Rights Council

Opening statements:

• Ms. Nada Al-Nashif, United Nations Deputy High Commissioner for Human Rights
• Mr. Thomas Bach, President of the International Olympic Committee (video message)
• Mr. Toshiro Muto, Director General of Tokyo 2020 Organising Committee (video message)

Panellists:

• Ms. Elizaveta Kunstmann, European Champion (2013, 2017 and 2019) and World Champion (2018) in sitting volleyball (video message)
• Ms. Kathrine Switzer, Athlete and social advocate (video message)
• Ms. Jenny Oklikah, Chief Executive of the NGO “Fight for Peace” (video message)
• Ms. Sofia Bekatorou, Olympic gold and bronze medallist in sailing (2004 & 2008 Summer Olympic Games) (video message)

With Seyi Smith.

Gamification has been used to improve processes across a wide range of businesses and as a method to deal with the intricacies of human psychology.

Could it be used to develop sports events and the industry as a whole? According to Oluseyi Smith, Olympian and Engineer, the answer is yes.

Besides being one of the few athletes to have competed both in the Summer and Winter Games, Seyi is a passionate advocate for climate awareness and developed sustainability processes for small scale athletics events as part his IOC Young Leader Project.

In this upcoming SportWorks TALK, he will guide you through what is gamification with respect to his project, how it can benefit sports and sustainability in general, and the results he achieved.

In partnership with: The Sustainability Report

Register here: https://bit.ly/3xRn5cC

In the wake of this pandemic and the adverse impact it has had on individuals as well as the economy, the role of sports in building a better and more inclusive society becomes even more crucial. A subject that requires further exploration is; how best to use the values that sport instils in us – resilience, discipline, leadership, and hard work – to bring about radical changes in our ecosystem. These values promote huge educational and life-skills, required for employability, livelihood and quality of life. This has led us, The Abhinav Bindra Foundation (not for profit initiative led by India’s only individual Olympic Gold Medallist), to start a series of dialogues with renowned experts with the aim of engaging with the sporting world as well as the general audience.

In our upcoming event, please join in to be part of Fireside Chat with Nobel Peace Prize laureate Muhammad Yunus, a Bangladeshi social business entrepreneur, banker, economist, and civil society leader. Through his initiatives, the ‘Yunus Social Business’ and ‘Yunus Sports Hub’, Professor Yunus has developed a global social business network that aims at creating solutions in and through the medium of sports. We implore you to not miss this opportunity to learn and interact with this luminary.

Click here to register to the session

The Paris 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games is committed to creating a landmark: to be the first major global sports event with a positive contribution to the climate.

The strategy is based on three pillars: reduction of greenhouse gas emissions, support for projects with a positive contribution to climate, and mobilisation of stakeholders to maximise long-term positive impact.

In this upcoming SportWorks TALK – Sustainability Leadership Series, Georgina Grenon, Paris 2024’s Director of Environmental Excellence, will give us an inside look on these pillars and their revolutionary ambitions, and how they are starting to deliver on that promise, three years ahead of their Games.

Click here to register to the webinar

UEFA’s Cleaner Air, Better Game campaign is raising awareness about the threat of air pollution to the future of football. During the European Under-21 Championship taking place in Hungary and Slovenia, UEFA has been encouraging fans around the world to take a step to protect the planet and the game we love. It has also led a series of legacy activities on the ground in the host nations and guaranteed this tournament is carbon neutral.
For this online workshop, UEFA is bringing together leaders and experts to discuss best practices in raising awareness and creating change through the power of sport.

Welcome and opening
Aleksander Čeferin, UEFA President
Frans Timmermans, European Commission Executive Vice President

Panel discussion
Lučka Kajfež Bogataj, Nobel Prize winning climatologist
Mathieu Flamini, Professional footballer and environmentalist
Michele Uva, UEFA Director Football & Social Responsibility
Lindita Xhaferi-Salihu, Sport for Climate Action lead, UNFCC

Watch live on Youtube : https://youtube.com/uefatv

In a year when our fans and communities needed us most, sports stepped up to the plate. From opening our venues as food banks, voting centers, and vaccination sites to leveraging our platforms to grow support for social justice, sports have shown how to serve as both cultural centers and critical corporate citizens.

The 2021 GSA Summit will celebrate these stories and showcase how sports venues, teams, leagues and corporate partners around the world can continue to take ambitious action on both environmental and social issues to create a more sustainable, just, and resilient future for all.

Learn how the scope of the “green sports” movement continues to expand, including improved operational performance measurement, tracking and reporting in addition to increased diversity in leadership and greater access to sports for all

Together, we Play for the Next Generation!

If you have any questions and/or are interested in participating in this year’s Virtual Summit, please reach out to us at info@greensportsalliance.org.

United Nations’ 2030 Agenda and SDGs (Sustainable Development Goals), and UNESCO’s Kazan Action Plan are great examples of international policies that guide the development of sports for development world-wide.

But how are they being put into practice? Are there good examples and case studies? What guidelines they suggest and that could inspire sport projects around the globe?

In this upcoming SportWorks TALK, Paul Hunt, Senior Project Manager at the International Platform on Sport and Development (sportanddev), will share learnings from initiatives in different countries that are building the bridge between policy and practice, to put sports at the service of all.

Click here to register

With the Paris Olympic Games and the French Presidency of the European Union approaching, the issue of sport and its relationship with environmental protection in Europe is of paramount importance. Therefore, Surfrider Foundation Europe and the French Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports would like to invite all stakeholders from the
European community of Sport to two days of debates and discussions, around the Sport and Sustainability movement in Europe.

Click here to download the program

Click here to register to the event

Building on the first edition of Sport4Impact held on January 2018 and referring to other international conferences or gatherings (such as, among other ones: Safeguarding Sport from Corruption,  Vienna  (5-6 June, 3,4 September 2019) promoted by Russian Federation and Italy; CIGEPS Extraordinary Session (28-29 March 2019), the Antananarivo Conference on KAP for Africa (11-14 September 2019); the Conference aims at maintaining and strengthening the momentum generated so far by those events focusing on the five following specific Intervention Segments:

• SPORT FOR SOCIAL INCLUSION FOR DEVELOPMENT (Policy Area II KAP)
  Sport as a leverage for long term oriented programs aiming at a real and substantive social inclusion functional to durable local development, also for citizenship empowerment. A special attention is given to the Skills for Labour Market, also building upon the EC SKILLSbySport4MED project.
  
• SKILLS IN, FOR AND THROUGH SPORTS
  Placing Skills as a Key-Concept in the theoretical debate around the social role of sport through a focus on sport as an enabler of competencies and soft skills, and high-lighting that skills are a precondition for the world of sport in transition.
  
• PRIVATE SECTOR AS A CO-DRIVER (SDG 17)
  The Private Sector (for profit and no-profit) is called more and more to participate actively to the process of sport as an enabler for social change in view of UN SDGs.  Entrepreneurship, CSR, Innovation and Technology/ICT are powerful vehicles to activate Social Change. A specific attention is given to using sport as a constitutive component of urban and not urban local systems.
  
• SIDE EVENTS on SDGs
  For each SDG sport has a specific potential to activate inititiatives which may contribute to their achievement: https://sdgs.un.org . Sport can help to make the SDGs a Reality!
  
• DETECTING AND REPORTING CRIMES (SDG 16)
  (in cooperation with UNODC Safeguarding Sport from Corruption and Crime Program).
  Focusing on detection and reporting as a crucial phase of prevention and countering policies, in view of a more substantive role of LEAs and a more fertile cooperation with Sport Bodies, a strategic use of Reporting Mechanisms is promoted with reference to Match-Fixing, Organized-Crime Infiltration, Abuses and other Crimes in the Sport Sector, also building upon the EC AMFF, TPREG and AMATT projects.  Reference is made also to KAP UNESCO Action III Guide Lines, Council of Europe Magglingen Convention, IPACS TF4. Sport Integrity is a precondition to ensure the social role of sport.

If you are interested to attend, please send an email to info@sport4impact.net

Apr 15, 2:00PM to Apr 15, 5:00PM (BST)
The Sport for Climate Action Forum will bring together individuals and organisations around the world for a series of showcases, workshops and keynotes focused on the key role that sport can play in protecting our environment. Attendees will be able to learn from those that are on the cutting-edge of this space, while also gaining the opportunity to engage with speakers and build connections with fellow attendees in an intimate convening of passionate, like-minded change-makers. 

Both Beyond Sport and the Swedish Postcode Foundation believe that the unifying and energizing nature of sport can help combat the apathy and lack of cooperation that hinders significant action on climate issues. In order to make the Global Goals a reality by 2030, we know that sport must play a bigger role. 

That’s why in 2019, we partnered to launch the Sport for Climate Action Collective Impact Award – a programme designed to support a group of organizations that are promoting Global Goal 13 through sport with grant funding and year-round facilitated support. As we close out the collective impact programme, Beyond Sport and the Swedish Postcode Foundation are broadening the conversation to the wider sector, in hopes of continuing to galvanize real action to protect our planet.

Click here for more information and to register