Led by Professor Richard Giulianotti, the Loughborough input is provided by colleagues from across the School of Sport, Exercise & Health Sciences, who are also members of the UNESCO Chair in Sport, Physical Activity and Education for Development. Helen Hathaway, a PhD student in the School, will be the programme development officer.
The programme is being produced in collaboration with academics in Africa based at Hassan II University of Casablanca in Morocco, Kenyatta University in Kenya, and Stellenbosch University in South Africa. Further inputs will be provided by leading NGOs based in Africa.
The aim of the training is to upskill officials and volunteers in the sport for development and wider development sectors in Africa. Once the programme contents have been finalised, training will be delivered both in-person in different African hub-sites and online.
The training programme has been commissioned as part of the flagship ‘Sport for Education and Sustainable Livelihoods in Africa’ (SESLA) initiative, which is being delivered and co-funded by Laureus Sport for Good, The International Olympic Committee’s Olympism365 programme and the French Development Agency, AFD. The overall goal of the SESLA initiative is to leverage sport “to empower young people to create more sustainable futures for themselves and their communities.”
Professor Giulianotti commented: “This is a fantastic opportunity for us to do exciting, impactful work, to promote development in some of the world’s most marginalised communities. We’ll be working with Laureus, IOC’s O365 and AFD on their ground-breaking SESLA initiative. We’ll be harnessing so much of the School’s expertise in sport development, and collaborating with leading experts in Africa, to create the programme. Most importantly, the training will have real-world benefits for practitioners and, in turn, for many thousands of young people in Africa who are involved in sport for development projects.”
Dr Morten Schmidt, Director of Programmes and Grants at the Laureus Sport for Good Foundation, added: “For Laureus, IOC and AFD, it was important to create a coalition of the best academic knowledge and know-how about sport for development in Africa, and the partnership between Hassan II University of Casablanca, Kenyatta, Loughborough and Stellenbosch universities represents exactly that. Via SESLA, we already work with and support a group of almost 30 strong and inspirational sport for development organisations across Africa, such as Malaika in DRC, Kick4Life in Lesotho and United Africa in Morocco. And we wish to build on their experiences to develop guidance to the new generation of sport for development in Africa and beyond.”