RIGHT TO PLAY IN GHANA
Clara Hughes had read the mission statement, knew about the many goodworks and had even heard testimonials from others who’d been forever changed by the power of Right To Play.
But it’s one thing to process all that intellectually. It’s another to stand in the middle of a refugee camp in Addis Ababa and hear the stories of children soldiers; or to watch the volunteer teachers, themselves still kids, trying to reshape their country; or to have little girls look at you, little girls who aren’t exactly encouraged to participate in sports, and see everything that is possible.
No, Hughes will tell you she thought the was ready for what she saw almost two years ago. She just wasn’t ready for the silver bullet which hit her in the heart. Now that shes going back, she remembers all that and wants to share it with the four others who are starting on the same journey.
But she also knows they’ll have to see it for themselves before what they fully believe what she believes.
‘Beckie (Scott, the gold-medal cross-country skier who travelled with her to Ethiopia in the spring of ’06) told me, Clara, this is going to change you,’ says Hughes, the gold-medal winning, long-track speedskater from her home in Glen Sutton, Que. ‘You’re going to leave here wondering what you’re doing with your life. And she was right. I mean, sports are great but it’s such a small thing. This was such a deeply profound personal experience.
‘I see this as an opportunity to use the voices of other athletes. The other three who are going to Ghana have a chance to be on the podium in Vancouver but they also have a chance to be leaders.’
And you don’t have to ask her what’s more important.
This weekend, Hughes, alpine skier Emily Brydon, aerialist Steve Omischl, skeleton’s Melissa Hollingsworth and Right To Play national director Warren Spires – along with one middle-aged sports writer who should blend right in with a group of world-class athletes – will fly to Ghana on Africa’s west coast to see Right To Play’s programs in action and to have their lives transformed.
Hughes made a similar trip almost two years ago when, shortly after her gold-medal turn in the 5,000-metres at the Turn Games, she travelled to Ethiopia with Scott and others for an experience that left an impression.
Then again, they usually do.
Spires, who has a limited promotional budget, hit on the nifty idea of packaging athletes (ambassador-athletes in the official argot) with journalists off to some fairly exotic locales to witness Right To Play in action and this will be his fourth trip. He’s been to Uganda; to Rwanda with hockey’s Hayley Wickenheiser, gold-medal mogul skier Jennifer Heil and speedskaters Kristina Groves and Arne Dankers; and to Mali with paralympians Chantal Petitclerc and Benoit Huot.
Right To Play deputy director Mark Brender, meanwhile, has been to Tanzania with NHLers Andrew Ference and Steve Montador and will be taking Zdeno Chara and Robyn Regher to Mozambique this summer.
RTP, which is headquartered in Toronto, started out as Olympic Aid in the early ’90s, before it morphed into its present form under the watchful eye of Norwegian speedskating legend Johan-Olav Koss. Spires can tell you all you need to know about the organization – the 20 countries in which it operates; its efforts to build self-sustaining programs through local leaders; its emphasis on disease-prevention, especially HIV, education and peaceful co-existence.
But, like Hughes, he’ll also say you can’t really understand it until you see it firsthand. ‘The athletes who’ve been over have seen the same thing,’ he says. ‘It’s like a special club.’
And its impact leaves a mark.
Spires talks about meeting a young volunteer teacher at a refugee camp in Rwanda. His parents, both doctors, were murdered in the genocide of the early ’90s. His eight siblings were hacked to death. He was attacked and left for dead but was saved and taken to a refugee camp in Uganda. There he tried to commit suicide three times before a voice told him he’d been saved for a reason.
Now, still a kid, he’s trying to help others.
‘This guy is so full of life and love,’ says Spires. ‘I’ll never forget him.’
And there are so many things you can’t forget. Brender talks about an entire village in northern Tanzania coming out to witness the opening of a new soccer field. As part of the day, local groups put on skits depicting their lives and a group of young girls performed a play about female circumcision in which the lead character bleeds to death.
‘I thought, What other way could you get that community together to hear that message?’ he says.
Or Hughes talks about meeting a group of volunteer teachers in Ethiopia, most of who were still in their teens and had been exposed to unimaginable horrors, and listening to the hopeful message they tried to impart to their community. As a four-time Olympian and the only athlete in Olympic history to win multiple medals in both the summer and winter games, she had sat through more than her share of team-building exercises and motivational speeches. But she’s never sat through anything that moved her like that.
‘You can lose sight of the joy of sport because it’s such a big business,’ she says. ‘But being around these kids reconnects you to that joy and that’s a beautiful thing. I was in awe of their openness and their courage. It’s a gift they gave to me.’
And the best part? She understands it’s her reponsibility to share that gift.
