The Chair of the OCA Peace Through Sport Committee, HRH Prince Feisal bin Al Hussein of Jordan, outlined the activities undertaken in the past four years, despite the challenges of the pandemic.
HRH Prince Feisal chaired an online meeting of the Peace Through Sport Committee on Monday and said that his committee had still been able to conduct programmes in Kyrgyzstan, Yemen and Sri Lanka from July 2018 to 2022 thanks to OCA funding.
“Obviously Covid has had a major impact on all that we have been able to do and the work that we have been able to achieve,” he told the committee members.
“It continues to be a challenge, but I think with various different lockdowns and concerns because of Covid we still managed to do some good work in particular in Sri Lanka.”
HRH Prince Feisal added that they were still hoping to conduct a peace through sport programme in Pakistan when contracts are completed in October this year.
He then outlined five projects under consideration for the future in the hope of securing OCA funding for three of them. The projects are in Syria, a continuation of the work in Sri Lanka, Pakistan for a second cycle, Palestine and Indonesia.
HRH Prince Feisal added that, with climate change affecting the world like never before with flooding and drought, he hoped to start these new activities as soon as possible.
Peace Through Sport Committee work in Afghanistan is also on the agenda, but he said the conditions were still not suitable and he would have to see how it panned out.
This comment was welcomed by Peace Through Sport Committee member and IOC Member from Afghanistan Samira Asghari, who said she would continue to monitor the situation and, in the meantime, support the projects proposed by the Chair. “We are on the right track,” Samira said.
The committee members will have an online vote to select the next three projects from the five put forward, and would seek 150,000 USD funding from the OCA to support the three projects with 50,000 USD each.