Doha GOALS Forum Executive Director HE Sheikh Faisal bin Mubarak al-Thani.
Agencies/Doha
The fourth annual Doha GOALS Forum, the world’s leading platform focusing on sports as a driver of social and economic change, will be held in Los Angeles from July 25-27, 2015. It is the first time the event will held outside Qatar.
This year, Doha GOALS Forum, produced by Richard Attias & Associates, will partner with Special Olympics for the three-day summit, which takes place during the week of the 2015 Special Olympics World Games in Los Angeles.
“Our partnership with Special Olympics is emblematic of how sports can be used as a catalyst to positively transform lives and communities,” said HE Sheikh Faisal bin Mubarak al-Thani, Executive Director of Doha GOALS. “The Special Olympics movement embraces people with intellectual disabilities, the most marginalised people in the world. Our partnership will go beyond a presence at the World Games, and will cover initiatives to last year-round to promote sport as a tool for creating a more inclusive society.”
To amplify their shared mission of bringing communities together through sports, students from both Doha GOALS’s Student Ambassadors Program and Special Olympics’ social impact summit, GenUin, will actively participate in taskforces throughout the Forum. As a cornerstone of the Doha GOALS Forum, the Student Ambassadors Program will convene more than 1,200 students from around the world, comprising three generations of student ambassadors and alumni.
The growth and success of the student program and the increased focus of the Doha GOALS Forum on issues related to youth empowerment, emerging markets, creativity and innovation has placed the spotlight on all the incredible young men and women and their achievements. The program will build on The Pass the BATON Initiative, which launched last year, by offering pre-selected students the opportunity to work with knowledge partners and develop their implementation plans for their proposed projects. Executive Producer Richard Attias said: “Doha GOALS is a platform that brings together global decision-makers with a clear agenda to act, not just talk.”
“We have spent more than four decades proving to the world that sport has the power to transform lives and communities,” said Special Olympics CEO Janet Froetscher. “We are excited to partner with Doha GOALS Forum to create a platform that brings together global decision-makers with a clear agenda to act and make impact. The backdrop of our World Games offers the perfect opportunity for leaders to see first-hand the immediate and positive impact sport can have and the lasting legacy it can bring to creating an inclusive and respectful society.”
Doha GOALS is a call to action for policymakers, NGOs, business leaders and athletes to present ideas for reform in sports, as well as ideas of how sports can be used to influence public policy. This year’s Forum will debate topics such as intersection of sports and Hollywood as a path for positive change, US as a global model for establishing athletic opportunities for women, impact of athlete activism on the environment, and sports and Silicon Valley.
Promoting inclusion in society through several initiatives that support the core mission have been established through Doha GOALS in the past 24 months, including a programme that built sports fields in Gabon, Palestine and Afghanistan, a prosthetics program supported by Paralympic champions in southern Africa, and the creation of Global Watch, a movement to stamp out racism in sports, in partnership with the Nelson Mandela Foundation and the Sexwale Foundation.
To date, the Doha GOALS Forum has brought together more than 5,000 participants from 70 countries to discuss how sport can be used to solve some of the world’s greatest social and economic challenges.
