By: Lauren Wong*
Being a born-and-bred Chicago suburbs girl, I love seeing the US triumph in water or on sand. My unwavering admiration, however, extends towards anyone who is a champion of human ability, not just the Americans. Jamaica’s Usain Bolt, fastest man alive, and China’s golden gymnastics team are triumphs that the entire world can be proud of. Beyond them are hundreds of men and women who pushed their bodies to the extreme to qualify for the Games. All of these Olympic athletes, hailing from slums and country clubs and bombed-out towns and crowded training academies, are success stories in my mind.
It’s easy to forget that sports are not the sole domain of superhuman elite athletes. The human necessity to play transcends language, class, religion, and geography. It is only natural, then, to use sports as a tool for good. Whether you look at prison boxing programs to keep convicts clean or the Homeless World Cup, the power of social change through sports is evident.
In the Philippines, sport-centered social entrepreneurship has begun to gain some ground. Christian Doroin, for example, has been working with Special Olympics in the Philippines for nine years now. Now on the Board of Directors, he still wakes up early on Saturday mornings to train people with physical or mental disabilities. The athletes, ranging from small children to older adults, get the opportunity to have their moment of glory when they compete against their peers. Sports teach them how to follow directions, become self-disciplined, interact with others as a team, and value fitness for continued health. “It’s the lessons behind sports,” Doroin explains, “that are really important. [Special Olympics] finds them a place in society by showing them how to live and interact with others.”
Internationally, playing fields and oblong-shaped tracks are being used as classrooms for important life education. Grassroots Soccer combines HIV/AIDS awareness curriculum with soccer to give young people in Africa the skills they need to live AIDS-free lives. They use popular soccer stars as strong role models and work AIDS awareness education into soccer training to affect the largest number of young Africans as possible. In North America, Girls on the Run uses running to show preteen girls how to develop self-confidence and healthy lifestyles. Instead of contrasting their figures to those of the ultra-skinny beauty icons, GOTR shows girls how to respect their bodies and incorporate fitness into their lives.
Sports keep kids dribbling around basketball courts instead of answering to juvenile detention courts. Sports connect kids, rich and poor, onto the same court to learn the value of teamwork. Sports stress discipline and hard work to reach goals and excel. Those social entrepreneurs who take advantage of all that sports can offer will find a great vehicle for social change. The Olympics has shown just how powerful sports can be. Its beauty lies in its ability to unite the entire world, for just two weeks, in an appreciation for how much power one individual or team has. That’s exactly what social entrepreneurship is all about, isn’t it?
*Lauren formerly interned at Ashoka Philippines.
September 17th, 2008 at 1:09 am
hi choi,
how is it lieing? was the information wrong? I am Special Olympics volunteer from China and he was very popular here. Please explain. Thank you.
September 15th, 2008 at 11:22 am
In the Philippines, sport-centered social entrepreneurship has begun to gain some ground. Christian Doroin, for example, has been working with Special Olympics in the Philippines for nine years now. Now on the Board of Directors, he still wakes up early on Saturday mornings to train people with physical or mental disabilities. The athletes, ranging from small children to older adults, get the opportunity to have their moment of glory when they compete against their peers. Sports teach them how to follow directions, become self-disciplined, interact with others as a team, and value fitness for continued health. “It’s the lessons behind sports,” Doroin explains, “that are really important. [Special Olympics] finds them a place in society by showing them how to live and interact with others.”
– thats a lie