WBSC President Fraccari: Baseball-softball must play its role in building back a better world through sport
The
COVID-19 pandemic has impacted our lives in ways which we could not havepreviously imagined. We have now spent more than year living with restrictions thathave made it difficult for us to play sport in groups or cheer on our favouriteteam. We have all worried about vulnerable loved ones, many of whom we have notseen for extended periods of time.
However,thanks to the wonders of science and resilience of the human spirit, we can nowstart to look forward to once again enjoying social activities which wepreviously took for granted.
Moreimportantly, we are now presented with a unique opportunity to build back afairer and more resilient world and I therefore urge the globalbaseball-softball community in joining the WBSC by committing to using ourbeloved sport to achieve this global ambition.
In accordance with the United Nations, we can recognize the role that sport and physical activity plays in communities and in people’s lives across the world. As we all know, baseball-softball and other team sports are uniquely placed to promote social cohesion, teambuilding, equality and inclusion. As a result, we must all ensure that sport plays a vital role in supporting global recovery efforts from the COVID-19 pandemic.
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Itis therefore important that our community continues to seek out, support andpromote initiatives that make baseball-softball more accessible across allsectors of society.
Weknow our sport, and particularly Baseball5, can be a very useful tool forpromoting peace and development through sport.
Thatis why, in March 2021, the WBSC joined the Olympic Refuge Foundation'sCommunity (ORF) of Practice where we will use Baseball5 to contribute to theorganisation’s goals. These include:
- Creatingsafe, basic and accessible sports facilities in areas where there are refugees,a displaced migrant population or internally displaced people, where allchildren and young people can play sport and take advantage of sport’s multiplebenefits;
- developsporting activities that can be successfully implemented within these safeenvironments; and
- Provideaccess to safe sport for one million young people affected by displacement by2024.
Wehave already been taking our newest and most accessible discipline to placeswhere accessibility to sport is desperately needed. This includes in Zaatari,the world’s largest camp for Syrian refugees, where in February 2019, the WBSCworked with Peace and Sport to bring Baseball5 to the camp.
In2017 and 2018, the WBSC also brought Baseball5 to the Friendship Games inBujumbura, Burundi. These annual Games have been organised by Peace and Sportin the Great Lakes region of Africa since 2007, bringing together up to 200children from Burundi, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Rwanda, to promotepeace through sport.
Andwith Baseball5 now set to take part in the next edition of the Youth OlympicGames in Dakar, I am even more optimistic about the WBSC’s ability to play itspart in shaping a healthier, fairer and more equitable world.