08.08.2008
About the Doha 2016 Youth Initiative
What is the Doha 2016 Youth Initiative?
The Crown Prince of Qatar, His Highness Sheikh Tamim Bin Hamad Al Thani has announced that – as part of the Doha 2016 Olympic and Paralympic Games Plan – 100,000 young people from all around the world will be invited to Qatar as honoured guests to watch the Olympic and Paralympic Games.
Who will take part?
The participants in the Doha 2016 Youth Initiative will be 100,000 young people from all around the world aged between 14-18 years old. There will be equal numbers of boys and girls. In addition there will be 12,500 delegation staff to accompany the youngsters from their homes to Qatar, look after them while they are in Qatar and then accompany them back home again.
Why is Qatar proposing the Doha 2016 Youth Initiative?
The Doha 2016 Youth Initiative is an integral part of the vision of the Doha 2016 Bid: “to focus on our shared future – the world’s youth”. A Doha 2016 Olympic and Paralympic Games will engage and inspire them so that Arab youth better understand the wider world and the youth of the rest of the world gain a true picture of Arab culture.”
We feel that this is a valuable opportunity for the Olympic Family to make a difference to the peoples of the world. A Doha 2016 Olympic and Paralympic Games would help to change perceptions about the Arab world and its culture. Awarding Doha the 2016 Games would unleash the power of the Olympic Movement and peaceful sporting competition to create understanding, hope and change that could unite the entire region with the rest of the world. This is the mission of the Doha 2016 Youth Initiative: to be the catalyst that creates that understanding, hope and change.
The Youth Initiative will create new friendships and understandings between competitors, spectators and people that will extend far beyond the Olympic Games themselves. It shares the IOC’s own mission of inspiring young people around the world about the Olympic and Paralympic Games and re-engaging them in sport.
Reflecting our Bid Tagline, ‘Celebrating Change’, the Doha 2016 Youth Initiative is about unity and friendship; it is about optimism and celebrating change; it is open, welcoming, fun and universally appealing; it overcomes barriers to cultures and peoples; and finally it honours achievement. All of these things are epitomized by the Olympic and Paralympic Games themselves.
With the Doha 2016 Youth Initiative, Qatar will be picking up the baton from the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games. London 2012 aims to inspire young people about the Olympics. Doha will take the next step to allow 100,000 young people from all around the world to experience the Games themselves. They will see firsthand every athlete’s dream – and we anticipate that having seen it, many will be inspired to live the dream for themselves while also having a chance to share this unique experience with millions of their friends and contemporaries around the world.