Sport as an agent for change
The most significant way sport can benefit the environmen and sustainable development
is through its popularity.
Sports stars are among the world’s most famous and revered people. They
display qualities we all need: courage, application, refusal to submit to adversity,
leadership. Their potential as ambassadors, as promoters of sustainable ways
of living, is enormous.
The power for good that sport represents can be harnessed and channeled
to help make our world a better place.
| By virtue of its prominence and influence,
sport can become a powerful agent for change, leading society at large.
It can lead by example, showing other sectors and the general public the
road to and the benefits of sustainability.
Sports organizations can act as catalysts to protect and enhance the
environment. They can work with government and industry to encourage them
to bolster their attempts to improve environmental conditions.
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| In
Sydney, Homebush Bay, which was for decades an environmental liability
as a toxic waste dump, was restored as a safe recreational site because
it was chosen as the main site for the Olympic Games. |
| The
2008 Olympic bid in Beijing has been the impetus for a massive air
quality campaign that has seen a significant reduction in air pollution
due to the pressure from the bidding committee to provide a safe environment
for competition. |
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Sport has the power to unite people around
common projects that benefit the natural environment and the community.
An excellent example is the MathareYouth
Sports Association (MYSA).
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 It
is perhaps a strange irony that this most powerful vision of sport’s
future should be born not in the wealthy cities of Europe and North America
but in seemingly desperate conditions of an African slum. The sporting
vision of MYSA is surely the closest thing yet to a working model of sustainable
sport: through shared responsibility and community participation the complementary
goals of better human and environmental health, greater recreational opportunities
and, personal and community growth are all achieved.
Using the popular appeal of sport, a group of kids from a slum in Nairobi,
Kenya, set about tackling the interrelated problems of pollution, disease,
crime, addictions and general lethargy from which they suffered.
What started out as a sport/environmental clean-up programme in 1987 has
expanded to include many other initiatives. More
about MYSA
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