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Over the past several weeks, Beyond Sport’s work has taken us from transformed community courts in Asia to leadership programs in Morocco and gatherings in Europe, Australia and North America.
Alongside partners, grantees and social change leaders, we have supported spaces for young people to play, leaders to exchange ideas and organizations to explore how sport can help build healthier, more inclusive communities.
Here are a few places our team and partners have been recently.
Rabat, Morocco: Advancing Disability Inclusion in Football
Football for All Leadership Programme Africa 2026, delivered by Integrated Dreams, brought 18 participants from across Africa to Rabat, Morocco for a week of learning, connection and project development.
The program supports disabled leaders working in sport as they build their skills and create more inclusive opportunities in football. Participants began online before coming together for in-person sessions on leadership, employment, entrepreneurship and project sustainability.
Beyond Sport’s Community and Foundation Events Manager, Emily Belcher, led a session on Project Sustainability, helping participants think through planning, partnerships, resources and long-term growth. Reflecting on the experience, Emily shared that she was “grateful to play a tiny part” in Integrated Dreams’ transformative work.
Asia: Inspiring Young People to Play Through Hoops + Health
Across Asia, Hoops + Health continued to create more places and opportunities for young people to play, connect and build confidence through basketball. Together with Sun Life and local partners, the program has reached thousands of young people across the region through court refurbishments, school clinics, community festivals, tournaments and youth development activities.
- In Hong Kong, Beyond Sport joined Sun Life, People’s Place and local partners at Kwai Fong Plaza to celebrate the opening of the city’s second Hoops + Health community basketball court. The launch brought together young people, families, local residents, basketball leaders and grantees including InspiringHK Sports Foundation, The Basketball Association of Hong Kong, China and the Hong Kong Federation of Youth Groups.
- In the Philippines, the second Hoops + Health community festival of the year took place at the newly refurbished BPTHAI Covered Court in Barangay Calzada-Tipas, Taguig City. The colorful, multi-purpose court now serves as a space for basketball, futsal, community events and local outreach.
- In Vietnam, the Sun Life 3×3 Community Tournament brought students together at the Canadian International School in Ho Chi Minh City for a free day of basketball, skills challenges and community connection. The wider Vietnam program includes tournaments in Ho Chi Minh City and Hanoi, school clinics, equipment donations and community training sessions led with Saigon Heat.
- In Indonesia, Hoops + Health continued at Diana Jaya Basketball Court in Tanah Baru, Depok, south of central Jakarta. Freely open to the community, the privately owned court serves an area with limited public recreational space and is widely used for local activities.
Lausanne, Switzerland: Innovation in Action at The SPOT
At The SPOT in Lausanne, Switzerland, Beyond Sport helped spotlight the Olympism365 Innovation Hub through a booth exhibition and interactive workshop with Hub innovators.
A collaboration between the International Olympic Committee, Beyond Sport and Women Win, the Hub supports innovators using sport, technology and new ideas to respond to challenges in their communities. Since launching in 2024, the Hub has supported 77 innovators across 41 countries.
Beyond Sport’s Tarryn Horner joined IOC representative Ana-Marija Garcevic to help lead the workshop, “From Pilot to Scale: How Sport & Tech Innovations Move from Experimentation towards Lasting Impact.” The session invited innovators and attendees to explore what it really takes to move from promising ideas to lasting impact, including the need to test assumptions, learn from what does not work and create space for ideas to grow before expecting them to scale.
Hub innovators Shannon Lanigan of All in for Sport Consortia, Mia Huang of Women Emerging and Fiona Pelham of Positive Impact Events also helped bring the conversation to life, sharing how they are testing and adapting tech-based ideas through the Hub’s Tech365 program. As Fiona reflected, the day invited people to put on “a new pair of glasses” and view innovation through the lens of impact.
Melbourne, Australia: Gender Equity Through the Olympism365 Innovation Hub
At the annual Women Deliver gathering, hosted for the first time in the Oceanic Pacific region, the Olympism365 Innovation Hub spotlighted how sport can support girls, women and gender-diverse people through safe spaces, leadership opportunities and community-led ideas.
A collaboration between the International Olympic Committee, Beyond Sport and Women Win, the Hub has supported 77 innovators in 41 countries, including a gender-focused portfolio of 26 innovators across 22 countries. Together, those innovators are using sport in different ways, from livelihood skills and entrepreneurship to trauma-informed safe spaces, youth leadership and challenging gender norms.
Boston, Massachusetts, USA: Connecting at Project Play
At the Project Play Summit in Boston, Claudia Larrea, Senior Manager, Programs, and Carly Heinz, Director, Development, joined more than 875 leaders from across the youth sport field for the Aspen Institute Sports & Society Program’s annual gathering.
This year’s Summit centered on a goal: getting 63% of young people playing sports by 2030. Sessions explored coaching, injury prevention, local sport systems, youth participation and ways to close access gaps.
For Beyond Sport, the gathering offered a chance to reconnect with partners, meet new organizations and spend time with others asking many of the same questions that shape our work: how to keep young people playing, how to make sport safer and more welcoming and how to support the people and places that make youth sport possible.
New York City, USA: Sport and Mental Health with CHJS
In New York City, Maggie Munoff, Digital Content Manager, and Claudia Larrea, Senior Manager, Programs, attended the Center for Healing and Justice Through Sport’s Nothing Heals Like Sport Speaker Series, focused on sport and mental health.
Held at Civic Hall in Union Square in partnership with the Carmel Hill Fund and GameChanger, the event marked the launch of a citywide coach training initiative to help coaches across the five boroughs create more healing-centered sport environments.
The evening featured conversations with leaders working across mental health, philanthropy and sport, including Rick Jordan of The DICK’S Sporting Goods Foundation; Michael Grinnell, a licensed clinical social worker and player wellness counselor with the National Basketball Players Association; and Hazel Guzman, Program Officer for Youth Mental Health at the Carmel Hill Fund. What stood out most was the openness from funders to listen, learn and invest in the people closest to the work. Hearing leaders speak about multi-year commitments, trust and shared learning felt like an encouraging shift in what it takes to move sport from harm to healing.
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