Honouring the power of sport to do good

 

Off to a celebration of Henry Hodge's life later today, so I may have a few words to say about that later - like if you haven't already, please make a donation to www.justgiving.com/alastaircampbell; and please accept my apologies that the justgiving site has been a nightmare since we set up the page the day Henry died. Many harsh words have been said. Justgiving assure us they are doing all they can. And despite the glitches we're a fifth of the way to our £50k target so that ‘in memory of Henry Hodge' becomes one of the fifty 50k donors to the Leukaemia Research 50^th anniversary fund. Meanwhile, I thought some of you might be interested in another project I have been involved in, namely Beyond Sport, a relatively new set up which seeks to mobilise the power of sport to deliver social good. Part of that involves finding, supporting and recognising leaders and projects which use sport to improve their communities (whether it's for health, education, crime reduction, children's rights, the environment, or other big issues). Next week (July 7-9) will see the first Beyond Sport summit in London, and one of the highlights will be an awards ceremony which honours some of the work people in sport are already doing. There have been entries from all over the world, and the leaders of the 32 shortlisted projects are all being flown in. Beyond Sport is the brainchild of Nick Keller, who is just back from seeing some of the shortlisted projects in action. ‘Boxgirls' started in Berlin and works with women of all walks of life, using boxing to unite them, train them, and steer them away from anti-social behaviour. The project now has a new branch in the slums of Nairobi Eastlands, where Nick was moved by the contrast between the apparent hopelessness of living conditions, and the extraordinary hope - and joy - that a sports project was able to deliver. On that same trip he visited another shortlisted project in the small town of Kilifi called Moving The Goalposts, where activity and education through sport is used to try to lower the rate of teenage pregnancies in an area where HIV/Aids and child mortality are real problems. I will be speaking in one of the sessions, on leadership, but am disappointed not to be able to attend the culmination of the event, as I have a wedding to go to. It means missing the part where the Shortlisted Awards project representatives will be joined by 500 people who have been invited because they have shown an interest in the idea that sport has a unique power to drive positive social change. These will include companies,  sports foundations like the Lance Armstrong Foundation and the Ian Thorpe Fountain for Youth, official bodies like UNICEF, the UN, UNESCO, sport federations from the NBA to the IOC to UEFA and many international and national governing bodies in between. Visit the Beyond Sport site and you can see what else is happening, and some of the impressive speakers and panellists lined up, people as varied as Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Wilfried Lemke of the UN, Michael Parkinson, HRH Prince Faisal of Jordan. Oh, and Tony Blair, chairman of the Beyond Sport ambassadors. He is on the day I can't be there. I've heard a few of his speeches in my time, so I guess I will survive without another, but it shows we've managed to get a pretty good line up for the three days. Will let you know who wins, when they've won. And would love to hear about people using sport for good closer to home too.