Bri­an Lewis, pres­i­dent of the T&T Olympic Com­mit­tee, de­liv­ered a pow­er­ful and sting­ing ad­dress on day one of the first-ever Sports In­tegri­ty Week (SIW) be­ing host­ed on­line by the Sports In­tegri­ty Glob­al Al­liance (SIGA), the world’s largest in­de­pen­dent in­tegri­ty or­gan­i­sa­tion.

on Mon­day, the Chair of SIGA Task Force of Race, Gen­der, Di­ver­si­ty and In­clu­sion spoke open­ly on these four top­ics and was point­ed and pas­sion­ate in his com­ments.

"In the world of in­ter­na­tion­al sport, sports lead­ers know the truth, see the truth but still be­lieve the lies and de­ny the re­al­i­ty of racism, sex­ism," said Lewis, who is al­so the pres­i­dent of the Caribbean As­so­ci­a­tion of Na­tion­al Olympic Com­mit­tees (CANOC).

"The prin­ci­ples of equal­i­ty and non-dis­crim­i­na­tion are at the heart of hu­man rights. Dis­crim­i­na­tion per­sists against re­li­gion, eth­nic mi­nori­ties, per­sons of African de­scent, old­er per­sons, women and per­sons with dis­abil­i­ties."

Ac­cord­ing to Lewis, racism re­mains the most com­mon form of dis­crim­i­na­tion, cit­ing an ob­ser­va­tion by 'Kick It Out' (foot­ball's equal­i­ty and in­clu­sion or­gan­i­sa­tion) that it has risen and is worse now than it was five years ago.

Kick It Out was es­tab­lished as a cam­paign with the brand name 'Let's Kick Racism Out of Foot­ball' in 1993 and as an or­gan­i­sa­tion in 1997. The or­gan­i­sa­tion works with­in the foot­ball, ed­u­ca­tion­al and com­mu­ni­ty sec­tors to chal­lenge dis­crim­i­na­tion, en­cour­age in­clu­sive prac­tices and work for pos­i­tive change.

"In­ter­na­tion­al sport is run by white, male de­ci­sion-mak­ers who have nev­er been racial­ly abused. They have no idea what be­ing racial­ly abused feels like. Or what be­ing dis­crim­i­nat­ed feels like, it doesn't af­fect them," sim­ply said Lewis, who posed the ques­tion. "Can we trust world sports lead­ers who talk the talk?

"They say the po­lit­i­cal­ly right things when they are in pub­lic but be­hind the scenes, the ac­tions they take don't re­flect the prin­ci­ples of equal­i­ty and non-dis­crim­i­na­tion

"Can we trust world sports lead­ers and de­ci­sion-mak­ers to walk, the talk?"

When the Task Force which Lewis heads was es­tab­lished in Ju­ly, the mem­bers posed these tough ques­tions to bet­ter be able to forge mean­ing­ful re­form and pro­mote the high­est stan­dards on race, gen­der, di­ver­si­ty and in­clu­sion.

"The rec­om­men­da­tions of the SIGA Task Force pro­vide a frame­work and yard­stick to mon­i­tor and eval­u­ate to hold the mir­ror up," said Lewis. "Every mem­ber of the Task­force had to them­selves look in­to the mir­ror and do some deep soul search­ing as we all car­ry un­con­scious bias and prej­u­dice of some sort or the oth­er.

"Our vi­sion must be as­pi­ra­tional to hearts and minds."

<Task Force mem­bers>

The Task Force in­cludes Affy Sheikh, Head of Star­lizard In­tegri­ty Ser­vices and SIGA Mem­ber; An­gela Me­lo, SIGA Coun­cil Mem­ber; Den­sign White, CEO of In­ter­na­tion­al Mixed Mar­tial Arts (IM­MAF) and Mem­ber of the SIGA Coun­cil; Paul El­liot, Mem­ber of The FA In­clu­sion Ad­vi­so­ry Board, for­mer pro­fes­sion­al foot­ball play; Ju’Riese Colon, Chief Ex­ec­u­tive Of­fi­cer, U.S. Cen­ter for Safe­S­port; Katie Sim­monds, Gen­er­al Coun­sel & Se­nior Di­rec­tor, Glob­al Part­ner­ships, SIGA; Karin Ko­rb, Wheel­chair Ten­nis, 2-time Par­a­lympian and 10-time mem­ber of USA World Team & SIGA Cham­pi­on; Stacey Copeland, First British Woman to win the Com­mon­wealth Ti­tle for Box­ing and SIGA Cham­pi­on; and Pavel Kly­menko, Head of Pol­i­cy at FARE Net­work (Foot­ball Against Racism in Eu­rope).

<Knowl­edge­able speak­ers at SIW>

Lewis was one of 12 straight-talk­ing, in­spi­ra­tional and pas­sion­ate speak­ers from around the world, de­liv­er­ing on day one of the Sport In­tegri­ty Week, which con­tin­ues to­day and will run un­til Fri­day (Sep­tem­ber 11).

Day one opened with SIGA chair­man Fran­co Frat­ti­ni mak­ing a call to ac­tion urg­ing all stake­hold­ers to be un­com­pro­mis­ing in the

bat­tle against In­tegri­ty threats. SIGA CEO Emanuel Mace­do de Medeiros ex­tend­ed this pow­er­ful mes­sag­ing by not on­ly stress­ing that stake­hold­ers must “stand unit­ed and strong in the re­solve to over­come this cri­sis. Sport must feel the pas­sion – the cat­a­lyst of so­cio-eco­nom­ic pro­gres­sion. There is no sec­ond chance. Sport owns the prob­lems but it must al­so own the so­lu­tions” but by al­so pro­vid­ing a plat­form for them to stand up and be count­ed.

In an­oth­er sig­nif­i­cant leap to­wards in­clu­siv­i­ty, the open­ing day of saw the launch of the first dig­i­tal work­shop for the SIGA Glob­al Men­tor­ship Pro­gramme on Fe­male Lead­er­ship in Sport.

There was al­so a wealth of en­gag­ing con­tent, fire­side chats and im­pact­ful we­bi­na­rs from high pro­file speak­ers and sports leg­ends and in­spi­ra­tional fig­ures from a range of ex­pe­ri­ence bases, or­gan­i­sa­tions and per­spec­tives in­clud­ing two-time Olympic gold medal­list Ed­win Moses, Re­nee Mont­gomery, two-time WN­BA Cham­pi­on (2015, 2017), Jes­si­ca Berman, Deputy Com­mis­sion­er & Ex­ec­u­tive vice pres­i­dent, Na­tion­al Lacrosse League, Jon Dun­can vice pres­i­dent, En­force­ment, The Na­tion­al Col­le­giate Ath­let­ic As­so­ci­a­tion (NCAA), to name a few.