COVER FEATURE
JEANETTE WANG LOOKS AT SOME EXAMPLES OF HOW YOUNGSTERS IN SINGAPORE AND AROUND THE WORLD ARE ALREADY LEARNING AND SHARING
History used to be Prithvi Gundlapalli’s least favourite class in school, but the 14-year-old Singaporean boy has since sparked an interest in the subject – thanks to the Olympic Games. “I hated history. But I researched Olympic history and it was very interesting,” says Prithvi, who did a presentation on the Olympic Movement to his schoolmates. On the other side of the world, 12-year-olds at Finland’s Vaaksy elementary school shared information about the Nordic country with their new Singapore friends at Innova Primary via email. “We have really good sportsmen and women like Formula One drivers Kimi Raikkonen and Heikki Kovalainen,” they wrote. These are but three experiences of
the hundreds of thousands of students in Singapore and around the world who have been touched by Olympism through the CEP. Specially-designed Olympic Education Resource Packs with teaching materials have been distributed to more than 360 of Singapore’s educational institutions. Most of those schools have already begun spreading Olympism to their students through assembly talks, introducing Olympic sports like handball and values like fair-play during physical education classes. Olympic themes have also been incorporated into academic subjects, while Olympic Education galleries and Olympic-themed school camps and sports days are not uncommon in the island state these days.
Innova Junior College vice-principal Chan Ying Yin, whose school is working with SYOGOC on new media initiatives – a key platform for the CEP – like grooming new media ambassadors, says: “The CEP is a great opportunity for our students to understand the spirit behind the Youth Olympic Games, as well as allow them to enlarge their world view. “And it’s not about giving them lecture notes on the Olympic Games – that will not touch them. It’s the involvement that will really make them feel for the Games.” Bukit View Secondary invited Singapore’s Beijing Olympic Games fifth-placed 100m butterfly swimmer Tao Li, 19, to give its students a talk in April on balancing sport and studies. Chung Cheng High student Lynn Yang, 15, overcame her aversion to sports after being introduced to the Olympic Movement through PowerPoint presentations and creative skits.
“Even for someone who is ‘allergic’ to sports like me,” says Lynn, “it brought home the excitement that the Olympic Games generates all over the world.” The CEP is being felt abroad too – through Friends@YOG, which twins a Singapore school with one or two of the other 204 NOCs. By April, 49 NOCs had already been twinned with over 120 Singapore schools. Pupils at Nan Hua High, which has been twinned with the Lesotho and Hong Kong NOCs, have begun learning about new cultures. The Philippines’ La Salle Green Hills has gone one better – it was the first twinned NOC to visit Singapore. In March, some 20 Filipino boys met with 35 St Nicholas Girls’ Secondary 2 students over traditional games and crafts, and feasting on local fare. The inaugural YOG will last only 12 days but the impact of the Games has already been felt by thousands of young people across the globe. n
OLYMPIC REVIEW 43