On Monday 15th November 2021, the ISF was present for the UNESCO official launch event for their new flagship, Fit for Life, with ISF President Laurent Petrynka and ISF Secretary General/CEO Hrvoje Custonja attending the event, located in Paris, France. The event took place in the framework of the 2021 UNESCO General Conference lasting from the 9th - 24th November, that takes place once every two years.
They were warmly welcomed by UNESCO Chief of the Sport Section, Philipp Müller-Wirth, as well as UNESCO specialist, Nancy McLennan who this year participated in the ISF School Sport Forum which had taken place in Belgrade, Serbia in September, as a keynote speaker.
UNESCO’s new flagship Fit for Life, powered by a global compact of partners, uses sport education to tackle urgent and intersecting crises in physical inactivity, mental health, and inequalities. Sport has the power to convene, convince and activate. It is a tool to build physical, mental, and societal resilience, deliver educational values and promote inter-cultural dialogue.
For the month of November, as part of the Fit for Life flagship, UNESCO has launched a one-month visibility and engagement campaign to promote equality, empowerment, inclusion in and through sport. The campaign calls for partners and activists from sport, education, health, youth, and equality ecosystems to mobilise around a common theme: powering equality in and through sport.
Much like Fit for Life, which unites partners to promote integrated and inclusive development through sport, this visibility and engagement campaign is an opportunity to join forces and promote sport as a high-yield investment to uproot inequalities and “build back better”. There are two ways you can get involved:
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Social media campaign: 1 - 30 November 2021
The ISF calls on the School Sport Community to engage in the social media campaign by posting content which promotes the link between sport and equality outcomes.
Content can be quotes, photos, short videos, testimonies, and statistics (see below examples). The aim is to create an issue-based conversation between elite athletes and grassroots sports leaders. The online visibility campaign will be coordinated by UNESCO and all partners invited to use common hashtags (see below) to ensure coherence and increase online imprints. Key partner contributions include connection with athletes, in-kind support with messaging/script development, and cross-promotion of the campaign online and through organisational networks. UNESCO will work with partners to develop coherent storyboards, key messaging, and related scripts (max. 30 seconds) which can be used to communicate with athletes, agents, youth, and organisational networks to be engaged.
#FIT4LIFE
#MOVE4EQUALITY
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Photo contest: 15 October - 30 November 2021
Support and promote the Fit for Life Photo Contest by encouraging young people aged 18 to 35 to submit a portfolio of photos which showcase the power of sport as a driver of equality, inclusion, and empowerment.
From 15 October and until the end of the visibility campaign, youth participants will be invited to submit one or several photos to have the opportunity to win a prize, be featured on the UNESCO webpage and have their work exhibited at UNESCO HQ. Partners are warmly invited to cross-promote the contest on their social media channels, engage their networks of influencers, ambassadors, and athletes to sponsor the contest and/or donate prizes for the winners.
