Los Angeles, California: The fourth annual Doha Goals Forum drew to a close on Monday. The event brought together more than 850 participants from 120 countries, showcasing extraordinary diversity among participants.
While the three-day summit is over, working sessions produced sports-focused action plans designed to drive social and economic change over the coming months.
The forum, held this year for the first time outside Qatar, was executive produced by Richard Attias and Associates.
“This year’s Doha Goals Forum was very much about what we, as individuals and as local, national and global citizens can do to promote the many facets of sport,” said H E Sheikh Faisal bin Mubarak Al Thani, Executive Director of Doha Goals.
Doha Goals is the world’s premier platform focusing on sport as a driver of social and economic change. Doha Goals, the Gathering Of All Leaders in Sport, convenes each year to create partnerships and initiatives for global progress through sport.
“Let’s build on the platform we have here in Los Angeles, during the Special Olympics World Games, and the attention that sporting events attract, to address some of the greatest divisions and problems that exist in our society,” Sheikh Faisal added.
“As a community, we have been truly inspired this week by stories of individuals risking their careers to fight for what they think is right, and by organisations changing communities around the world through sport,” said Richard Attias, Executive Producer of Doha Goals Forum.
“But the work is only just beginning: we pass the baton to the private sector now to address one of the biggest conclusions of the Forum — that doing good is also good for business.”
Throughout the session, ideas for new initiatives were presented, such as Reach out to Asia – Doha Goals.
The two organisations will work together to ensure that communities affected by crisis across Asia, have access to relevant and high-quality education.
They will also explore a multi-year social development partnership with the non-profit, focused on youth and volunteer engagement across Asia.
Another new initiative is My Angels Academy — Doha Goals which will explore a partnership with the organisation led by Sylvester Peter, who has committed his life to helping transform the lives of youth in the impoverished areas of West Delhi. My Angels Academy is a trust of 100 youth of all ages who meet on a daily basis to take part in football training, life skills, creative arts and play.
Influential panellists, moderators and speakers over the three day summit included: Michael Phelps, 22-time Olympic medallist, World Cup champion Abby Wambach; NFL superstar Jamaal Charles, Linda Cohn, host of ESPN’s SportsCenter, Yuna Kim, South Korean world champion figure skater, Carl Lewis, nine-time Olympic gold medallist, Maria Shriver, founder of The Shriver Report, Mark Spitz, nine-time Olympic gold medallist, Marcellus Wiley, host of SportsNation, and Jamal Mashburn, former college and NBA all-star.
To amplify their shared mission of bringing communities together through sports, a total of 400 students from both Doha Goals Student Ambassadors Programme and Special Olympics’ social impact summit, GenUin, actively participated in taskforces throughout the Forum. To close the Forum, three generations of student ambassadors and alumni joined as youth pitched their ideas for changes to top global sports leaders.
Several initiatives that support the core mission have been established through Doha Goals in the past 24 months, including a program that built sports fields in Gabon, Palestine and Afghanistan, a prosthetics program supported by Paralympic champions in southern Africa, and the creation of Global Watch, a movement to stamp out racism in sports, in partnership with the Nelson Mandela Foundation and the Sexwale Foundation.
Participants addressed four main touchstones at this year’s forum: building a movement through sport, the imperative for inclusion, sport’s power to
create bridges across divides in our societies, and sport as a catalyst for transformation and change.
The forum provided the opportunity for the entire Doha Goals community to meet and establish collaborative projects. Couple of hundreds of one-on-one meetings took place alongside the forum through the Community Connect app.
To date, the Doha Goals Forum has brought together more than 8,500 participants from 120 countries, 650 speakers, 130 sporting champions, 60 ministers and senior government representatives, 1,200 media, 2,200 student ambassadors from 100 schools and universities around the world to discuss how sport can be used to solve some of the world’s greatest social and economic challenges.
THE PENINSULA
