Is it pos­si­ble to erad­i­cate dis­crim­i­na­tion in sport? If we rewind a few months to the ab­hor­rent racism dis­played at the Eu­ro cup fi­nals it could seem like a fu­tile pur­suit. Cer­tain­ly, if you have a dis­abil­i­ty the odds are stacked against you, with lit­tle in­ter­est from me­dia out­lets and stig­ma re­duc­ing ac­cess and of­ten di­min­ish­ing your voice.

Nev­er mind the glar­ing dis­par­i­ty be­tween the val­ue placed up­on men's and women's sport.

These ques­tions played heav­i­ly on my mind as I scanned the vir­tu­al room at a re­cent Com­mon­wealth meet­ing of sports of­fi­cials. We were talk­ing to each oth­er from all cor­ners of the world, but the com­radery was un­de­ni­able, with re­al con­nec­tion and un­der­stand­ing of each oth­er's per­spec­tives, de­spite the dis­tance.

Of course, we had all just stepped off the same dizzy­ing roller coast­er ride - with the lows of lock­downs and grim covid re­ports and the peaks of long-de­layed re­unions, un­ex­pect­ed in­no­va­tions, and tri­umphs such as the Tokyo Olympics and Par­a­lympic games.

What was strik­ing, though, was that we were not just bond­ed by the col­lec­tive trau­ma of the pan­dem­ic. There was some­thing much more pro­found and en­dur­ing that fa­cil­i­tat­ed the ease of our con­ver­sa­tion - the val­ues that de­fine the Com­mon­wealth and en­com­passed our dis­cus­sion.

Covid-19 had cre­at­ed ad­di­tion­al and un­ex­pect­ed set­backs and made it even more ur­gent for us to meet and find joint so­lu­tions to our joint chal­lenges. Pan­dem­ic or no pan­dem­ic we would have been here to­geth­er talk­ing about how we could use sport and phys­i­cal ac­tiv­i­ty to tack­le com­mon dis­eases such as di­a­betes, to quell the con­flict and to ad­dress so many oth­er de­vel­op­ment chal­lenges. And the con­ver­sa­tions about dis­man­tling bar­ri­ers to sport par­tic­i­pa­tion and end­ing dis­crim­i­na­tion in the in­dus­try would have hap­pened re­gard­less.

It can be easy to un­der­es­ti­mate the pow­er of this shared val­ue sys­tem or won­der why group­ings like the Com­mon­wealth keep talk­ing about it - for­get­ting how prin­ci­ples such as hu­man rights, gen­der equal­i­ty, and free­dom of ex­pres­sion have changed our lives.

Cer­tain­ly, my own jour­ney from the two-year-old, struck by Po­lio, through to be­com­ing the first wheel­chair rac­er from Sub-Sa­hara Africa to com­pete at the Par­a­lympics, to hav­ing the op­por­tu­ni­ty to tell my sto­ry and fight for in­clu­sion of oth­ers, would not have been pos­si­ble if these val­ues had not been prop­a­gat­ed and in­te­grat­ed in­to law.

I am not say­ing that these val­ue sys­tems have re­solved the world's in­clu­sion chal­lenges. Far from it. It is painful­ly ob­vi­ous that raw racism is still rife in sport and in all parts of our so­ci­ety. But, as we seek to lev­el the play­ing field and cre­ate ful­ly in­clu­sive so­ci­eties, we must ac­knowl­edge that we have made progress and that it was the I-have-a-dream speech­es, the tire­less ad­vo­ca­cy, and the stub­born re­solve to rewrite harm­ful nar­ra­tives that brought us this far.

So, as we ap­proach the Com­mon­wealth Games in Birm­ing­ham in Ju­ly 2022, we have the op­por­tu­ni­ty to con­sid­er how we can in­crease the pow­er of this en­dur­ing and shared val­ue sys­tem to pro­pel us to­wards in­clu­sive­ness in sport.

I think it starts with a clear un­der­stand­ing of how sport and phys­i­cal ac­tiv­i­ty are tied to val­ues such as ac­cess to health and ed­u­ca­tion, equal­i­ty, and even peace and se­cu­ri­ty.

Of course, gov­ern­ments have al­ready fig­ured out that in­vest­ing in ed­u­ca­tion about the ben­e­fits of sport and move­ment is a pre­ven­ta­tive health strat­e­gy that could save them bil­lions in the long run. The ev­i­dence is in­dis­putable with the Cen­tre for Dis­ease Con­trol say­ing that those who are phys­i­cal­ly ac­tive for about 150 min­utes a week have a 33% low­er risk of all-cause mor­tal­i­ty than those who are phys­i­cal­ly in­ac­tive.

But, bear­ing in mind the pan­dem­ic has stolen so much of the progress we have made in this area, caus­ing a marked de­cline in phys­i­cal ac­tiv­i­ty, there needs to be a healthy in­vest­ment in sports ed­u­ca­tion. This needs to start from nurs­eries, con­tin­u­ing through pri­ma­ry and sec­ondary schools and even mak­ing it an in­te­gral part of the ter­tiary ed­u­ca­tion ex­pe­ri­ence. More­over, we need to fig­ure out ways of en­gag­ing those not in for­mal ed­u­ca­tion.

Ul­ti­mate­ly the aim is to in­stil a set of core be­liefs about sport and phys­i­cal ac­tiv­i­ty as a pre­req­ui­site to healthy liv­ing and a space where any­one, re­gard­less of race, gen­der, lo­ca­tion, so­cio-eco­nom­ic back­ground, or phys­i­cal or men­tal abil­i­ty can ex­pe­ri­ence its ben­e­fits with­out be­ing sub­ject­ed to bar­ri­ers or abuse. These val­ues are al­ready clear­ly ex­pressed in the Com­mon­wealth's ful­ly rat­i­fied con­sen­sus state­ment, de­signed to pro­tect and pro­mote the hu­man rights of every in­di­vid­ual in­volved in the sports sec­tor.

Fur­ther­more, this val­ue-based ef­fort should be com­ple­ment­ed with in­no­v­a­tive com­mu­ni­ty sport­ing pro­grammes which can ad­dress chal­lenges such as gang vi­o­lence and redi­rect youth­ful en­er­gies from crime and oth­er harm­ful ac­tiv­i­ties.

Cer­tain­ly, the pan­dem­ic's am­pli­fi­ca­tion of the need to ad­dress pre­ventable lifestyle-re­lat­ed ill­ness­es should have been a sober­ing wake-up call to those who view sport as an easy choice to de­pri­ori­tise when they need to re­or­gan­ise or re­duce bud­gets.

By ex­ten­sion, this makes dis­crim­i­na­tion in sport, not just a prob­lem for sport­ing in­sti­tu­tions, but al­so a grave con­cern for gov­ern­ments. The good news for Com­mon­wealth coun­tries is that we have the ad­van­tage of a joint val­ue sys­tem which in the past has helped us to tack­le pow­er­ful ide­olo­gies such as apartheid or come to­geth­er to tack­le cli­mate change. I be­lieve we can again use the strength of these shared val­ues to work to­geth­er to make sport­ful­ly in­clu­sive and tack­le dis­crim­i­na­tion.

And there are many mech­a­nisms to sup­port these ef­forts. For ex­am­ple, the Com­mon­wealth will be work­ing with UN­ESCO on their re­cent­ly launched sport-based flag­ship de­signed to tack­le con­tem­po­rary chal­lenges such as phys­i­cal in­ac­tiv­i­ty, men­tal health is­sues, and in­equal­i­ty to fos­ter peace­ful, in­clu­sive, and re­silient so­ci­eties. This will build on the Com­mon­wealth's ex­ist­ing ini­tia­tives which in­clude train­ing and one-to-one sup­port for coun­tries build­ing ef­fec­tive sport­ing pro­grammes.

Is it pos­si­ble to erad­i­cate dis­crim­i­na­tion in sport? I be­lieve so.

Anne Wa­fu­la Strike

MBE Com­mon­wealth Cham­pi­on for Equal­i­ty in Sport