CEO of the International Centre for Sport Security (ICSS) Mr. Massimiliano Montanari said that the ICSS is committed to promoting sustainable development.
Sustainability is a priority for the International Centre for Sport Security (ICSS) and its Save the Dream initiative, a global nonprofit Movement committed to promote and protect core values of sport for the good of youth and future, supported by Ooredoo as Technology Partner, Montanari said in an exclusive interview to Qatar News Agency (QNA).
“Sustainability means for us promoting long-term programmatic approaches rather than one-off projects while supporting initiatives which can continue over time through solid partnerships and the creation of self-sustainable eco-systems able to ensure proper resource mobilization,” he said “It means working with multipliers and promoting as much as domino effects and multisectoral actions that can benefit sport as an industry and as system of values to be protected,” Montanari added.
Regarding the common ground between sport and sustainability, Montanari said “Sport teaches sustainability. There are so many lessons we can learn from sport at all levels. Most of grassroots sports succeed (not just survive) since they are grounded on both well planned or in many cases spontaneous self-sustainable mechanisms where small sponsors, volunteers, communities, municipalities, and civil society work together to provide sport to youth.
“The same way that athletes are preparing and managing competitions, the way they utilize their energy provides us with important notions,” he pointed out.
About the ICSS’s projects in Somalia, Libya, and Darfur, ICSS CEO said “We arrived in Garowe, capital of the Somali State of Puntland and we found a total lack of sport activities for children. We left after a few months of project implementation and the city has now a corps of well-trained coaches, teachers, educators, and NGOs able to manage local sport projects and use the values of sport as a part of their educational programmes.” He said that in the city there is now an inter-school league where children, both boys and girls, can participate, learn, and have fun, adding “All this is now owned by the local community, still with some help from us, but they are ready to walk alone. This is what I call sustainability.” “We hope to go back soon to Somalia with our partners Qatar Charity, Qatar Fund for Development (QFFD) and the UN to expand the scope of the project. The dream is to promote the creation of small businesses to manufacture sport goods at the community level as a way to sustain grassroots sports as much as possible,” Montanari said.
Source: Qatar News Agency