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Olympians support Peace & Sport Watch

24 | 4 | 2015

Peace & Sport’s Champions for Peace, a group of ambassadors many of whom are Olympians, are supporting the Peace and Sport Watch initiative which was launched this week at SportAccord in Sochi with the aim of fostering the development of the peace through the sport movement and offering its stakeholders a neutral, relevant and daily digest of the latest news.  

Peace & Sport, the organisation which promotes the practice of structured sport and sporting values to educate youth and help foster social stability, reconciliation and dialogue between communities, launched Peace & Sport Watch in partnership with Agence France-Presse [AFP] Sports – the French based global sports news agency.

The official launch of Peace & Sport Watch was led by Joël Bouzou, President and Founder of Peace and Sport, Vincent Amalvy, Head of Sport at Agence France Presse, and Charmaine Crooks, Champion for Peace and Olympic Silver Medallist.

Joël Bouzou, who is also WOA President said: 

“The peace through sport movement is constantly growing. Thanks to the efforts of so many over the past years, more and more policy-makers are realizing the full potential of sport for positive social change. To support this growth, we must ensure that the movement has the tools it needs to unite stakeholders, create dialogue and raise more public awareness. This is the goal that we set ourselves with the Peace and Sport Watch.

“The Watch will be the online component of our International Forum, the next edition of which will take place in Monaco in November this year from November 25-27.” 

Vincent Amalvy added:

“Sport is at the heart of Agence France Presse’s development strategy. We’re proud to work with Peace and Sport on this initiative – it’s the next logical step for our partnership, which began in 2007. With our journalists posted in 150 countries, we can bring our know-how to support the Watch and help sport play out its full role in society.”

Representing Peace and Sport’s 82 Champions for Peace, Canadian Olympian Charmaine Crooks, Silver Medallist in the 1984 Los Angeles Games, emphasized the need for sporting champions to rally their efforts for peace through sport causes and underlined the value of this new informative and awareness-raising tool.

Charmaine Crooks said: “As Olympians it is important that we support initiatives such as Peace and Sport Watch which help to foster peace. That was the original mission of Olympic’s founder Pierre de Coubertin and we are proud to carry the torch for peace into the 21st century and beyond."