Guest Blog Post – David Thibodeau
Sports for Social Impact Podcast – Listen here: https://bit.ly/47Rh1VI
I reached out to GOALS Haiti to highlight their work on the podcast and share how they are using sport in powerful ways to support people and communities in rural Haiti. In this episode, Kathy McAllister and I explore how soccer becomes a tool for transformation, how young people are stepping into leadership roles, and what it takes to sustain meaningful impact amid immense challenges.
You can listen to the 35-minute episode here. Below is more about my journey and how I came to start the podcast.
My journey in sport started like many others—at a local community fitness and leisure center, where I learned to swim and participated in summer camps. Growing up in Canada, I was fortunate to have access to affordable sport and recreation programming, which led me to competitive swimming and eventually to become a swim coach.
I also became involved in advocacy efforts to create more inclusive and welcoming environments for LGBTQ+ athletes, coaches, and fans in sport, working with organizations like You Can Play. During this time, I found myself asking, “How can we make sport more inclusive?”
In 2020, after returning from Global Sports Week Paris as a Young Sport Maker (one of fifty participants and the only one from Canada), that question began to shift. I started asking, “How can we use sport to include?” While there is still important work to do to make sport more inclusive, Global Sports Week opened my eyes to another side of sport I hadn’t fully seen before: sport for development.
When I returned from Paris, I looked at the sport sector in Canada (and more broadly in North America) and found that few people were talking about using sport as a tool for social impact in a meaningful way. That realization led me to start the Sports for Social Impact podcast, with the goal of sparking conversations and engaging practitioners, administrators, policymakers, businesses, and fans to think about sport in bigger and more impactful ways.
Through this podcast, I’ve had the opportunity to connect with organizations like GOALS Haiti that are using sport to create real change. I hope you enjoy the conversation and are inspired by the work being done.