As Trin­bag­o­ni­ans are in­clined to col­lo­qui­al­ly say when things get re­al­ly hec­tic—"is mad­ness in the place, things re­al crazy"—With the Open­ing Cer­e­mo­ny of the Olympic Games mere days away and Paris be­sieged by mil­lions of vis­i­tors for the Games. Paris is a bustling bee­hive, or, as Trin­bag­o­ni­ans will say, things are re­al­ly crazy as the great­est show on earth is about to open.

In all the hus­tle and bus­tle, Un­der the pa­tron­age of UN­ESCO and the In­ter­na­tion­al Olympic Acad­e­my, the First In­ter­na­tion­al Olympic Ed­u­ca­tion, Sport, and Peace Con­fer­ence in Paris 2024 will take place.

Among the dis­tin­guished in­ter­na­tion­al speak­ers is T&T Olympic Com­mit­tee (TTOC) Sec­re­tary Gen­er­al An­nette Knott. Hav­ing ac­cept­ed an in­vi­ta­tion to speak at the con­fer­ence, it is an ho­n­our to be among such an es­teemed in­ter­na­tion­al list of thought lead­ers shar­ing thoughts and ideas. There are oth­er Olympic-re­lat­ed con­fer­ences tak­ing place in Paris. In­clud­ing an in­ter­na­tion­al sum­mit on sport and sus­tain­able de­vel­op­ment host­ed by the IOC and the of­fice of the French Pres­i­dent.

How­ev­er, the in­for­ma­tion cir­cu­lat­ed by the or­gan­is­ers of the First In­ter­na­tion­al Olympic Ed­u­ca­tion, Sport, and Peace Con­fer­ence states:

In the midst of lo­cal, con­ti­nen­tal, and glob­al po­lit­i­cal chal­lenges and lead­er­ship changes, unit­ing our ef­forts for peace and de­vel­op­ment, along­side the im­por­tance of uni­ver­sal, Olympic, and Par­a­lympic val­ues, as well as ed­u­ca­tion and glob­al gov­er­nance, has be­come para­mount. We firm­ly be­lieve that sport and phys­i­cal ed­u­ca­tion, de­vel­op­ment, and peace, as well as Olymp­ism, which strives “to place sport at the ser­vice of the har­mo­nious de­vel­op­ment of hu­mankind with a view to pro­mot­ing a peace­ful so­ci­ety con­cerned with the preser­va­tion of hu­man dig­ni­ty’ — should be sup­port­ed. These el­e­ments of­fer a vi­sion from which we can all learn and to which we should all as­pire to­geth­er.

The Paris 2024 In­ter­na­tion­al Olympic Ed­u­ca­tion, Sport, and Peace Con­fer­ence on Ju­ly 25-26, 2024, will build on a decade of suc­cess­ful and in­ter­ac­tive Sport and Peace Round­ta­bles glob­al­ly and 10 years of the In­ter­na­tion­al Sport and Peace Con­fer­ence in Cape Town, South Africa, which seeks to pro­mote sport, recre­ation, and peace world­wide.

The con­fer­ence will be con­duct­ed in an in­ter­ac­tive for­mat, ad­dress­ing the fol­low­ing key themes:

- Olymp­ism, Pierre de Cou­bertin, Olympic and Par­a­lympic Val­ues Ed­u­ca­tion.

- Africa, Youth, Ed­u­ca­tion, Skills De­vel­op­ment.

- Sports In­clu­sion, Men­tal Health, and Well­be­ing.

- Sport for Sol­i­dar­i­ty and Peace.

The or­gan­is­ers aim to ig­nite col­lab­o­ra­tion among stake­hold­ers in the fo­cus area of sport and peace, con­sid­er­ing the cur­rent state of our world and the Olympic and Par­a­lympic val­ues based on the fun­da­men­tal prin­ci­ple of Olymp­ism.

Par­tic­i­pants will be chal­lenged to break new ground and dis­cuss how Olympic and uni­ver­sal val­ues such as re­spect, ex­cel­lence, friend­ship, fair play, non-dis­crim­i­na­tion, and sol­i­dar­i­ty can ap­ply to broad­er glob­al themes of peace and com­mu­ni­ty de­vel­op­ment.

They will al­so ex­plore how best to forge part­ner­ships among di­verse or­gan­i­sa­tions to build on these char­ac­ter­is­tics in the con­text of the Sus­tain­able De­vel­op­ment Goals (SDGs) of the Unit­ed Na­tions Agen­da 2030 and the African Union Agen­da 2063. The con­fer­ence will en­cour­age in­te­grat­ing sports and Olymp­ism with ed­u­ca­tion­al and civ­il dis­course ini­tia­tives.

The con­fer­ence will fea­ture en­gag­ing dis­cus­sions, pre­sen­ta­tions, de­bates, and the shar­ing of ex­pe­ri­ences in the realms of Pierre de Cou­bertin’s vi­sion, sport, recre­ation, com­mu­ni­ty well­be­ing, and youth de­vel­op­ment with­in the con­text of peace.

At­ten­dees will be in­spired by a dis­tin­guished line-up of na­tion­al and in­ter­na­tion­al guest speak­ers, in­clud­ing rep­re­sen­ta­tives from the Unit­ed Na­tions (UN), the African Union (AU), the In­ter­na­tion­al Olympic Com­mit­tee (IOC), the In­ter­na­tion­al Par­a­lympic Com­mit­tee (IPC), the In­ter­na­tion­al Olympic Acad­e­my (OA), the Pierre de Cou­bertin Fam­i­ly As­so­ci­a­tion, var­i­ous na­tion­al Pierre de Cou­bertin Com­mit­tees, the Com­mon­wealth Sec­re­tari­at, the In­ter­na­tion­al Peace Re­search As­so­ci­a­tion (IPRA), the In­ter­na­tion­al Work­ing Group (IWG) on Women and Sport, and oth­er NGOs and gov­ern­ment rep­re­sen­ta­tives.