This Special Program Gives Refugee Athletes a Chance to Compete in the Olympics

The Worldwide Olympic Committee (IOC) has determined to broaden a distinctive enterprise for the upcoming 2020 Summer time Olympics in Tokyo: The Refugee Olympic Group. The enlargement is a part of the IOC’s long-term effort to empower displaced athletes each earlier than and after the Olympics.   

The Refugee Olympic Group will function athletes from 13 international locations around the globe, together with Afghanistan, South Sudan, Syria, and Venezuela. The success of the authentic refugee group—which featured simply 10 individuals through the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro—impressed the IOC to broaden the group to 29 athletes for the Tokyo video games.   

In a message of solidarity and hope, the Olympic Refugee Group will compete underneath the Olympic flag and will march within the second place through the opening ceremony, instantly after Greece.  

The IOC has additionally formalized a particular program for refugee athletes because the 2016 Olympics. The committee created the Olympic Scholarship for Refugee Athletes program, which awards grants to 56 eligible athletes.  

This offers athletes with monetary assist that permits them to coach for the Olympic Video games, in addition to proceed their athletic profession and save for his or her future. The IOC has donated a complete of two million {dollars} in assist of the scholarship-holders since Rio 2016.  

Each the athletes on the Olympic Refugee Group and people who didn’t make the minimize this 12 months will proceed to obtain assist from the IOC. They’ll complement their scholarship earnings by way of model partnerships, will obtain instructional supplies on matters like anti-doping, and can be supported of their coaching for future Olympic Video games.  

In partnership with the United Nations Excessive Commissioner for Refugees, the IOC additionally created the Olympic Refuge Basis (ORF). The muse’s mission is to assist “the safety, growth and empowerment of displaced younger individuals by way of sport three hundred and sixty five days a 12 months throughout the globe.”  

Since launching in September 2017, the ORF has supported the event of 12 packages for refugees in Columbia, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Jordan, Kenya, Mexico, Rwanda, Turkey, and Uganda. An extra initiative can be launched in France this 12 months.  

On account of the ORF, an estimated 200,000 younger individuals affected by displacement are taking part in sports activities. OFR hopes to offer a million younger individuals with entry to sports activities by 2024.  

Offering each displaced skilled athletes and kids with these alternatives is a crucial transfer by the Olympics. Simply as importantly, this world platform can hopefully assist deliver consciousness to the plight of tens of millions of refugees at present.  

FILED UNDER: Olympics