Commonwealth Conference on Youth Work in South Africa, plenary session on using sport as a tool for promoting national development and peace, Pretoria, 9 March.
“Youth work professionalisation is critical to advancing approaches using sports for development”, a leading official from the world of sport has said, in an address to the Commonwealth Conference on Youth Work in South Africa.
Gideon Sam, Vice President of the Commonwealth Games Federation and President of the South African Sports Confederation and Olympic Committee, was taking part in a plenary session on using sport as a tool for promoting national development and peace at the event in Pretoria on 9 March.
In his remarks, Mr Sam underlined the importance of bringing youth workers into sports development processes, recognising that the sporting movement can benefit from the active involvement of young people.
He said: “In order to sustain outcomes from sport programmes like the 2022 Commonwealth Games, youth workers should be innovative in their planning and implementation, and work in partnership with others at the community level.
“We want young people to be part of process. We must involve the youth workers,” he added. Mr Sam backed initiatives which empower young people through sport and creative arts and which focus on personal leadership, youth skills development, and peer to peer mentoring.
Durban in South Africa plays host to the 2022 Commonwealth Games. It will be the first time the event is held on the African continent.
Mr Sam also welcomed the work of the Commonwealth Secretariat, which advocates for sport to be seen as a powerful catalyst for the empowerment of young people. The Secretariat provides policy advice and technical assistance to Commonwealth governments to adopt sport as a tool for development and peace as part of its wider programme work to support youth development and empowerment.
“We are very closely linked to the Commonwealth Secretariat. It is a relationship that we expect to only be deepened in the future”, he said.
Mr Sam’s address resonates with the 2016 theme for Commonwealth Youth Work Week, to be held from 7-11 November this year, which is 'Empowering young people through sport and the creative arts'.
In August 2016, the Commonwealth Secretariat hosts the Commonwealth Sports Ministers Meeting on the margins of the Olympic Games in Brazil, bringing together government representatives from the 53 member countries of the Commonwealth.
The last such meeting was in Glasgow in 2014 ahead of the Commonwealth Games.
The three-day Commonwealth Conference on Youth Work this week brings together youth work practitioners, academics and policy-makers from the 53 member countries of the Commonwealth to explore the theme, ‘Engaging Young People in Nation Building: the Youth Worker’s Role.’ The event is hosted by the Government of the Republic of South Africa in partnership with the Commonwealth Secretariat, University of South Africa and the National Youth Development Agency.
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