After three days of sports, training workshops, musical events and community engagement initiatives, the Aswan, Egypt, mini-Olympics ended with a commitment to work jointly towards the realization of the Sustainable Development Goals by 2030.

“The Olympic motto is “higher, faster, stronger.” Today let’s work together to ensure the motto of all future sports events to also include social justice, economic progress and peace and security,” said Sausan Ghosheh, Director of the United Nations Information Centre (UNIC).

Ashraf Mahmoud, Egyptian Federation for Culture and Sports President said the mini-Olympics “provided an opportunity to educate youth about the 17 Sustainable Development Goals to transform the world and to reconfirm the uniting role of sports for promoting peace, development and citizenship.”

The mini-Olympics, organized by Egypt’s Ministry of Youth and Sports, the Egyptian Federation for Culture and Sports, and the United Nations, kicked off on Friday. Players representing 7 Egyptian sports federations took part in 10 games including football, basketball, handball, volleyball, and table tennis. Each team represented one of the seven SDGs chosen to correspond to the development priorities of Aswan. The goals are social justice, good health, quality education, equality, innovation, decent work, and peace and justice.

To further draw attention to the goals, a friendly football match was played at the sidelines of the mini-Olympics between the SDG team composed of players from Aswan and representatives from the different federation. The score was 4-3 in favour of the SDG team, symbolizing a victory for progress and development.

Speaking at the opening of the event Ghosheh said the 2030 Agenda is a commitment by world leaders to eradicate poverty, provide quality education and health services, ensure decent work, protect the environment, and safeguard human rights peace and security.

The second day of the Aswan mini-Olympics was dedicated to the youth in city. It included workshops to familiarize youth with “Mostakbalana 2030”; a joint initiative by League of Arab States and the UN to promote dialogue among Arab youth using social media platforms to convey their opinions and visions about strategic issues linked to their future such as development, employment, citizenship, plurality and violent extremism among many other topics, all chosen by the youth themselves.

The UN’s International Labour Organization also organized training workshops for youth on job hunting skills such as writing CVs, interview techniques and teamwork. In addition, there was a seminar on youth and innovation.

Via UNIC Cairo