The Olympic Centre in Maadi, Cairo, hosted more than 130 multinational boys and girls in an international youth camp, reports Inas Mazhar The participants, aged between 14 and 18 and with their 45 coaches, represented 16 countries in North Africa, the Middle East and West Asia. The Global Sports Fund International Camp was organised by the Global Sports Fund (GSF) in cooperation with the United Nations Office for Drugs and Crime and the Qatar Olympic Committee (QOC), and was launched from the Maadi Olympic Centre in Cairo on Saturday. Wilfried Lemke, special adviser to the UN secretary- general on Sport for Development and Peace launched the camp's kick-off in the attendance of representatives from the National Sports Council, National Olympic Committee and Centre, regional representatives of the United Nations Office for Drugs and Crime, with the participation of youth and sports teams from Azerbaijan, Djibouti, Tunisia, Turkmenistan, the United Arab Emirates, Yemen, Egypt, Eritrea, Iran, Lebanon, Morocco, Palestine, Qatar, Somalia, Sudan and Tajikastan. The GSF works with community-based organisations, parents, schools and qualified coaches to help youngsters use their leisure time to develop their potential, while making decisions to steer clear of delinquency and drugs use. The camp's main objective is to provide young boys and girls as well as their coaches with an opportunity to learn the GSF way of using sport to teach adolescents about important life skills. Training sessions in football and volleyball also included friendly competitions, but classroom discussions on such topics as playing by the rules, fair play, teamwork, respect for others and awareness of the harm of drug use and behaviour that could lead to delinquency, balanced out the learning programme. During the four-day event, youngsters had the opportunity to try out what they learned in the classroom on the playing field and courts under the guidance of coaches. The participants lived, played and studied together, which is expected to foster lasting friendships across many cultures. Previous camps held in Lebanon and Qatar brought together participants from countries in conflict and those successes have helped to develop the programme for this camp. According to the organisers, when participants leave Cairo for home, the GSF team will be helping them set up after-school sports activities and mini-camps back in their own communities. Sightseeing trips, meetings and talking with distinguished sports personalities and officials and telling their own stories in videos, added to the fun in a learning atmosphere. As was done previously, a gala dinner was held on the last day to recognise the achievements of the participants who will now be GSF youth and coaching ambassadors. GSF is an initiative of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) and the QOC that seeks to offer youths opportunities to regularly participate in amateur sports within their communities under the guidance of trained coaches under the theme of giving youth a sporting chance.
