Peace and Solidarity: Spotlight on the Olympic Refugee Team
Representing resilience and unity under the Olympic flag, the Refugee Olympic Team serves as a powerful symbol of hope, peace, and the limitless potential of refugees around the world.
I’m Yiech Pur Biel, member of the first-ever Refugee Olympic Team which competed at the Rio 2016 Olympic Games. Since then I have also had the privilege of becoming an IOC Member and a Board Member of the Olympic Refuge Foundation.
It is my honour to receive this inaugural award on behalf of the Refugee Olympic Team.
The athletes on the Refugee Olympic Team represent us with grace. They demonstrate what refugees can achieve when we are welcomed into our new communities and have the opportunity to thrive.
The team itself is a representation of peace and solidarity. Every single one of these athletes has a different story — they speak different languages, have different cultures and come from different countries. But they come together under one flag, the Olympic flag. They are joined together through solidarity and their love of sport.
Accepting this award on behalf of the team, I want to acknowledge what this symbolizes. The first Refugee Olympic Team was created by the IOC in 2016 and I marched alongside nine other athletes into the Maracana stadium on opening ceremony night — a moment I will never forget. The purpose of this team then, and now, is two-fold. 1. to support refugee athletes to continue their athletic career and compete on the world stage and 2. to bring attention to and change views towards the 120million people across the globe that, like me, have been forced to flee their homes.
This commitment to supporting displaced people through sport embodies the values of sport and the Olympic ideal of peace, bringing to life The Olympic Charter which outlines every individuals’ right to practice and access sport, as a human right.
And when the lights go off, the stadiums are packed up and the crowds go home, the Olympic Refuge Foundation continues to support nearly half a million young displaced people across the globe through sport 365 days a year to improve their mental health and well being and find belonging again in their new communities.
On behalf of the members of the Refugee Olympic Team, I acknowledge and thank the IOC President Bach for his vision creating this team and the Olympic Refuge Foundation and his ongoing support and leadership.
The Refugee Olympic Team and its athletes will continue to inspire and and shine a light on the right to asylum, on the right to protection, on the right to accessing sport.
I hope that you will all continue to support us. Cheering for us every time a refugee athlete steps out onto the field of play and using sport and physical activity in your own work to foster belonging and other benefits and wellbeing.
It was not our choice to be refugees, but thanks to our resilience and those who continue to support us. we can demonstrate that we are an enrichment to society, and we can continue to find belonging in our new communities.
On behalf of the Refugee Olympic Team, refugees across the world, the International Olympic Committee and the Olympic Refuge Foundation, thank you again for this honour and recognition.
The inaugural Spotlight Award was presented to the Refugee Olympic Team. These remarks were originally presented by Yiech Pur Biel, an athlete and advocate, accepting this honor on the team’s behalf at the Human Rights First Annual Awards Celebration on October 8, 2024.
