Interview with Ms. Nancy MCLENNAN

(Fit for Life Lead, UNESCO)

Q1. Thank you for sharing your time with us for the interview. Could you briefly explain to the subscribers of ICM News about your role at UNESCO and what the organization is doing, especially in the Sport Section?

I'm the lead of UNESCO's Fit for Life Sports initiative. And this initiative. And this initiative is the framework that we use in the Sports section to implement all of our work. So Fit for Life is something that we designed in response to what we consider as three intersecting global crises that were exacerbated by the coronavirus: physical inactivity, inequalities and rising mental health issues. We saw this as an opportunity for governments and different stakeholders to use sport more as a tool for social outcomes and social impacts. So, Fit for Life was born and designed in this regard, so Fit for Life is essentially the work of the Sports section. It is our programmatic work and then accompanying Fit for Life, we have our intergovernmental mechanisms.

So, maybe your readers or your subscribers are aware that UNESCO is a specialized UN agency. We have 194 member states and one of our value addeds within the UN system is that we have a direct connection with the ministries and with the governments of our member states. 

The work we do in Fit for Life and also in the Sports Section connects directly with the work of our intergovernmental Committee, CIGEPS, which is the Intergovernmental Committee for Physical Education and Sports. This is the only committee of its kind which exists in the world. And it has been a real pleasure to see the students do the model at UNESCO and interact, as if they were CIGEPS member states.

And we also have our global ministerial forum and this is called MINEPS, the acronym and it's something that we hold every few years. MINEPS establishes the global sports policy agenda and the priorities. CIGEPS is the body that supports with the road map and the implementation of the recommendations from MINEPS. And Fit for Life is the program that kind of operationalizes. So this is how these different components work together.

Q2. You participated in this year’s Model UNESCO Conference hosted by ICM. Could you share some impressive highlights from the conference?

Just to say first of all, it's a sincere pleasure to come to Korea and to be welcomed by you and your colleagues at ICM. It's a fantastic opportunity for us in the UNESCO secretariat to see the good work that you're leading in the center.

It's been a real pleasure and an inspiration to engage with the students that you have here; they are so motivated, so smart, so strategic, and so passionate about their work. I felt yesterday that the lecture we gave and then work, the breakout sessions afterwards really demonstrated those characteristics of theirs. And so we had lots of questions and I felt that the questions were really targeted. They seemed to have a real sincere will to understand how policy is made and also to understand how national policies made but then also how you federate that up at the international level. So it's fantastic. I think it's a really great initiative and it aligns very well with different parts of Fit for Life. I briefly mentioned to you why Fit for Life was created in response to these three intersecting crises. But actually just to maybe elaborate slightly, we have, Fit for Life that is really a framework for action. It brings together partners from across different sectors, sports but also education quality and youth sectors from policy level down to community. 

And the framework has really been designed in order for us to design more effective and inclusive sports policies and physical education policies. That's the ‘in sport lens’ and also to scale the use of sport as a driver of development more broadly. So we have this ‘in sport’ and this ‘through sport’ perspective. But the center of Fit for Life is really about inclusion and inclusive policy. So that connects, I think, very well to the themes of the Center ICM as well as this conference. Youth empowerment and engagement is a core area in Fit for Life. And we have something called our Youth Accelerator Program which is really focusing on upscaling and equipping young people, particularly in terms of increasing their employability outcomes but also outcomes related to well being, physical and mental health. So master classes that connect to sports connect them to mentors and then give them the opportunity of doing different work placements.

And I see the work that you're doing in the Model UNESCO as well as some of the other camps that you have as really being quite well aligned with this methodology you know, of up-skilling young people but also giving them the opportunity to upscale themselves, putting them in the center and making their voices heard.

Q3. What advice would you give to young people who are passionate about addressing global challenges using sports (or martial arts)?

Yeah, I think that sport is a really innovative tool, a pathway to engage a very broad cross section of the population in development. And I think that if we're talking specifically about martial arts, which I know is the focus here, I think that it is a really powerful discipline. I think it combines the history and culture, the environment with a kind of individual development. So you have this balance between the social, the historical and the individual. So I think if you look at that kind of discipline, there's a lot of skills that you can learn that would be applicable in other points of their lives. I think the young people that are working here with at the model UNESCO have demonstrated to me in so many ways that their voices and their perspectives are hugely valuable.

I think there should be more. When we talk about the inclusive policy development I mentioned as a priority of Fit for Life we think of that in a couple of different ways. What we want to try and do is create a shift in terms of the voices that are included in the development of policy.

And I think it would be really interesting to explore more concretely how the suggestions, the projects and the ideas of the young people in the model UNESCO can be brought to the attention of decision makers in Korea but also beyond. 

And I think that would be great to explore further as we develop our partnership and our collaboration between ICM and UNESCO.

Q4. What do you think is the role of ICM in promoting youth development through sports(or martial arts)?

I think I've mentioned when we've been having meetings with some of the other members of the center, including your Secretary General is that I think there's a rich portfolio of projects that you already run and I think that there would be real potential in ICM becoming a regional hub of sorts, a hub that would be connected directly to the implementation of Fit for Life where it relates to youth engagement, youth empowerment, well being and employability.

I think it could be an opportunity for ICM to attract and engage students from outside of Korea in the region for example, and gather them here and to have these targeted trainings and opportunities for them to exchange.

Q5. Lastly, do you have any message for the ICM News subscribers, who are mostly youth or martial arts instructors?

Well speaking to the students who are your subscribers, I would actively recommend that they try and engage with your programs and they promote the work that they’re doing, you're doing to their constituencies. I think there's such value in the work that you're doing and then their participation. 

To the coaches and the teachers of martial arts, your Secretary General was sharing with me yesterday some information about a new tool that's been developed by ICM and IT Tralee(now MTU), which is UNESCO Chair, and it's a training kind of module that teachers of martial arts can undertake that's focused on increasing inclusivity of practice. And I think that would be something I would recommend for them to take a look at, because I think martial arts is something which I understand from speaking with your colleagues, depending on the martial art, you have fewer and fewer people participating. And so I think promoting the uptake particularly at this moment in time where we see a real crises in terms of mental health and disconnection between modernity and history and culture. I really feel like it would be an amazing opportunity to engage more diverse groups in martial arts.