Sport for All, Volunteerism for All
Sharon Capeling-Alakija, Executive Coordinator, United Nations Volunteers



By focusing on volunteerism – and its role in making sports accessible to all – this Congress sends two crucial messages:
First, wide access to sports is crucial to the vitality and productivity of every society.
Second, without volunteer effort, wide access is not possible.
This Congress takes place in Germany, a country that can take pride in the impressive statistic that 28 percent of its citizens volunteer for organisations or causes in their free time. Germany also houses the Headquarters of the United Nations (UN) Volunteers Program.
The UN Volunteers Program makes available to countries that require them, more than 5000 UN Volunteers from virtually every country who, even as we speak, are hard at work in communities around the globe – planting, teaching, monitoring, building, healing, rescuing, designing..and yes.. coaching, refereeing and cheering.
Countless people, all over the world, take pleasure not only in playing and organising, but also in watching athletics. Why does sport have such a firm hold on so many of us? Why does it have so much power to stir our imaginations and raise our spirits?
Sports can uplift and unify. Case in point – as President of a new South Africa, Nelson Mandela talked about the ‘profound role of sport...in nation-building and reconciliation’ and called it a force that ‘is binding our nation’. (footnote)
Sport is indeed about connection. Whether we are fans or coaches or players, most of us engage in sports with other people. To be sure, there are exceptions. One can run, swim or drive golf balls alone, and, as the Arabic saying goes, ‘When you play alone, you are likely to win..’, but it seems that if too many people play alone, society is likely to lose.
In the nineties, a Harvard University Professor, Robert Putnam, noticed that more and more of his countrymen were going to bowling alleys by themselves. He wrote an article drawing attention to the phenomenon of ‘Bowling Alone’, and analysed its implications for civil society. Judging by the publicity this scholarly article received, he had touched a nerve. ‘Bowling Alone’ ultimately became a best selling book that set off a good deal of soul searching, reaching well beyond academic circles.
Like sports, volunteerism is essentially and profoundly optimistic. It is about human potential, striving, and achievement. It is about connection. It challenges one’s limits and tests our resolve. Like so many sports, it requires people to perform on someone else’s turf, and as in sport, if it’s done right, everybody wins.
As I think of them, sports and volunteerism are a kind of double helix – two life affirming strands intricately intertwined.
It is in the realm of sports that millions of people around the world first experience volunteerism. When you begin volunteering as a youth, you tend to do it for the rest of your life.
Here in Germany, a significant percentage of volunteers – especially among young people – devote themselves to sports.
That is good news, because as everyone in this room can appreciate, it takes a tremendous volunteer effort to sustain amateur sports around the world. Moreover, expanding access to sports opportunities requires the participation of diverse volunteers.
In short, Sports for All means Volunteerism for All: all ages, all racial and ethnic groups, all ability levels, all genders, and all social strata.
Why does this matter so much? Because the leap from scorekeeper to peacekeeper is not as great as you might think. Let us recall Nelson Mandela’s comments: He said that sports don’t just unify people...they help to bring about reconciliation.
This is not just theory. All over the world, efforts are underway to promote the causes of peace and reconciliation through sports. Let me offer some examples:
In the aftermath of war, sports can foster reconciliation among former child combatants, who may be traumatised and polarised by their horrific experiences. Case in point: in Sierra Leone, UNICEF and the NGO, Right to Play, have joined forces to organise networks of coaches who can provide sports programmes for these young people, who have often been separated from home and family. Sports programmes can help to reconnect them with each other and with their communities.
In other places affected by conflict or natural disaster, sports help restore children’s lives to some semblance of normalcy. According to UNICEF WFT and UNHCR workers, often among the first responders, two things help most with children’s recovery: number one is food, and number two is simple sports equipment, such as a ball, a hoop or a jump rope.
More and more communities and nations are recognising that when they invest in sport, they are contributing to health, education, employment and moral development. When they facilitate participation in sports, they are helping people achieve a sense of belonging. When they support sport in all of its diversity, including participation by those with disabilities, they are building hope for the future as well.
Sport is a means: the values and skills learned through sport, such as fair play, team work, resilience, discipline, and sharing, parallel those needed for development and peace.
But sport is also an end: the desire to play is an essential human attribute.





http://www.icsspe.org/portal/bulletin-january2004.htm