04 February 2025 – Addressing the World Leaders’ Summit on Children’s Rights, presided over by His Holiness Pope Francis and held in the Vatican, the President of the International Olympic Committee (IOC), Thomas Bach, urged attendees to work together to ensure that children can enjoy their right to safe sport.
“Today, we are reminded of our collective responsibility: to build a better world for our children, we have to act faster, aim higher, be stronger – and we have to join hands,” he said, speaking during the panel discussion on “The Child’s Right to Free Time and Leisure”.
This is why I invite everyone present here today, whatever your mission in life: join hands with us to ensure that every child can enjoy their right to safe sport. In this spirit, let us live our Olympic motto: Faster, Higher, Stronger – Together. Thomas Bach, IOC President
President Bach outlined how, through sport, children can learn universal values such as teamwork, discipline and fair play, as well as the importance of rules, mutual respect and the joy of striving together towards a shared goal.
He also highlighted the Olympic Movement’s leadership role in peace and solidarity, bringing together athletes from the territories of all 206 National Olympic Committees at the Olympic Games Paris 2024.
Creating opportunities for children to access sport
President Bach highlighted two initiatives that show how the IOC is living up to its responsibility to create the conditions for children to participate safely in sport: the Olympic Values Education Programme (OVEP) and the Olympic Refuge Foundation.
OVEP reaches over 60 million children annually in more than 60 countries, embedding sport and physical education in curricula around the world: “From Greece to Senegal, from Oman to Montenegro, from Italy to China and many more, Olympic Values Education Programmes are being adopted at national levels, illustrating how we are living up to our responsibility of making access to sport available to every child,” President Bach explained.
The Olympic Refuge Foundation brings sport to children living in refugee camps and displaced communities.
As a result of our work, more than one million young people on four continents have been given access to safe sport, which is so vital for their physical and mental wellbeing. Through sport these children and youngsters can find stability and belonging, moments of solidarity and peace in the midst of upheaval. Thomas Bach, IOC President
“As these and many other examples demonstrate, sport is so much more than just physical activity. Sport is health. Sport is inclusion. Sport is respect. Sport is empowerment. Sport is solidarity. Sport is peace”, President Bach concluded.
The World Leaders’ Summit on Children’s Rights
Announced by Pope Francis on 20 November 2024, on the occasion of the International Day for the Rights of Children and Adolescents, the World Leaders’ Summit on Children’s Rights brought together in Vatican City a number of States’ representatives and experts on 2 and 3 February 2025. Its mission was to discuss new methods of helping and protecting the millions of children who still have no rights, live in precarious conditions, and suffer the dramatic consequences of wars.
