ANOCA PRESIDENT’S MESSAGE ON AFRICA DAY, 25 MAY 2023
ANOCA President and IOC Member Mustapha Berraf’s special message to the African Sports and Olympic Community.
“AFRICAN SOLIDARITY MUST BE OUR HAVEN OF PEACE”
On 25 May 2023, Africa will be in the spotlight. This should be the case every day and at all times. Africa, our Africa, must always be in the limelight because the whole world is watching us and we too must make our mark on it.
African NOCs will joyously be celebrating the African continent through sport, which fosters and upholds the values of love, sharing and solidarity. Let us, therefore, share that Olympic ideal that urges us to be enablers of peace. Africa must be a haven of peace and sport must give a major boost to this vision that requires us to pursue excellence.
African youths are the future and guiding them is thus a requirement. More than 550 million African youths are under the age of 18, offering a talent pool of youths that must thrive in order to contribute to Africa’s development.
Aware of this, we must together find the necessary chemistry to ensure that, through sport, African youths can consolidate gains in peace and actively engage in fostering the spirit of peace to pacify our continent and ensure it develops on all fronts.
Upcoming major sports events challenge our collective consciousness in this regard. A case in point is the African Beach Games billed for Hammamet, Tunisia from 23 to 30 June 2023. We are exactly 30 days away from the kick-off of the Games.
30 days away from one of Africa’s major sports events, which will bring together more than 1,000 athletes and thousands of spectators from the four corners of the continent and the world at large. The countdown to the final lap of Hammamet 2023 begins today.
We stand ready to showcase to the world our diverse skills in organising major sports competitions. Building on the maiden edition, the Games have now become part of our DNA. Tunisia will be demonstrating its legendary hospitality. It has indeed gauged the importance of the event and we are very proud of it.
Hammamet 2023 offers a great opportunity to mould these young people that will be coming from all parts of Africa. The city of Hammamet will be the destination for young African athletes come June. To be such a rallying force, Africa must be a haven of peace.
Africa is therefore celebrating on this 25 day of May 2023, and it is in this spirit that its Sports and Olympic family will be going to Paris.
Together we will participate in the Olympic Games and once again sound the voice of our continent through the feats of our athletes, who as usual, will compete with professionalism, abnegation and bravery. Each of their performances in Paris 2024 will sound like a victory for peace in Africa.
All we have to do now is to support them and create enabling conditions for solidarity to enliven and idealise the African spirit of living together.
25 May brings to mind two very powerful things about sport: the power of solidarity and the power of peace. This is just what is needed to make our continent a haven of peace.
