Ep. 114: Sports Has the Power to Change the World
Guest: Aileen McManamon, Athlete Activist
Aileen McManamon embraces the idea that "sport has the power to change the world."
That is from Nelson Mandela's dictum. As an an expert at creating social good from sport, she feels that we in Canada are missing out on opportunities to influence change.
McManamon points to the FIFA Women’s World Cup in 2015. "What we did well as a country was to put on a great sporting event. What we didn't do well was to take the occasion to talk about things like gender equality. And the Women's World Cup presented a unique opportunity to do that, because Canada's hosting was the first time that that field had been expanded from 16 to 24 teams. So that was a big leap toward parity on the sporting front. And we really missed that opportunity to deal with that. And we also missed a number of economic opportunities."
