Sports can have a powerful influence on the creation of peaceful and safe communities and help reduce violence and prevent crime among youth. The UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) sat down with Gnima Faye, a professional track-and-field star from Senegal – and supporter of the “Sport against Crime: Outreach, Resilience, Empowerment of at-risk youth” (SC:ORE) programme – to discuss the impact of sports on her life and in her country.
Gnima Faye, gold medalist in the 100 metre hurdles at the 2012 African Championships, was tired of the cultural pressure to be submissive.
“When you are a girl in Senegal, you are taught to be submissive, to not speak loudly, to lower your eyes,” she says.
“It’s hard to explain, but we experience violence every day in our society,” she adds, referring to women and girls. “Being surrounded by powerful men, when you can’t open your mouth, when a man tells you to ‘shut up, you have no right to express yourself’ – these are all forms of violence.”
Gnima admits that she herself has experienced terrifying violence firsthand but says that she does not want to re-live the ordeal by discussing it.
Suffice to say, she continues, that “today, I am able to say no to what I could not say no to before.”
Gnima credits sports with giving her the power to move past her trauma and “see life differently.”
Her older brother, Ibou Faye, was also an African champion in the 400 metres hurdles. He made it all the way to the 1996 and 2000 Olympics, inspiring Gnima to also choose running as her sport of choice.
In addition to winning gold at the 2012 African Games, she won silver at the 2015 Games and the 2013 Jeux de la Francophonie.
Without running, Gnima adds, “I would probably just be a married woman like everyone else – a shy, polite girl who doesn’t say anything to anyone.”
Gnima doesn’t think her story is unique. “Sports can save our lives in so many areas,” she says. “For example, in the suburbs, most girls stop studying very early [to get married].”
“But if they practiced sports, it could prevent them from having these early marriages. They could go to training, have another vision of what their lives could be.”
The SC:ORE initiative, jointly led by UNODC and the International Olympic Committee (IOC), aims to bring the life-transforming power of sports to more young people like Gnima.
SC:ORE works to prevent and combat violence and crime through sports-based learning, mentoring support, and skills training to build more peaceful and safe communities and promote social inclusion.
It is based on the principle that participation in targeted sport programmes can prevent youth from being victimized. By offering youth a safe and conducive learning environment in which to grow and creating pathways to education, employability and social networks, sports can help them fulfil their potentials as agent of positive change in their communities and prevent their engagement in violence and crime.
Gnima was motivated to join the SC:ORE campaign in order to let people “know the struggles we are facing today in our society. And to convey the message to young people that there are people they can talk to and ask for help.”
Gnima wants sports programmes to be included in all neighbourhoods, which she thinks will be an effective way to reduce rape, robbery, attacks, and more.
“Today, we will do everything so that young people do not suffer the things we suffered.”
But although sports can have far-ranging impacts on lives, Gnima says she would tell young girls one thing first and foremost: “Enjoy sports, it’s a pleasure above all!
“It’s your life – so take advantage of it.”
SC:ORE builds on the UNODC Youth Crime Prevention through Sport initiative, including the Line Up Live Up programme, as well as the IOC’s Olympic Education Values Programme (OVEP). The project contributes to the realization of strategic priorities set in the Olympism365 strategy and UNODC Strategy 2021-2025, aimed at strengthening the role of sport as enabler of sustainable development and placing the realisation of the sustainable development goals and the welfare of people with local communities at the centre.
To learn more about SC:ORE, click here.
For more information contact Georgia Dimitropoulou georgia.dimitropoulou@un.org
UNODC/ DTA/Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice Section.
