Sport is not just a physical activity with multiple benefits for our health. Over the years it has also served as an instrument for rapprochement and the search for peace in the face of different conflicts.
There are many wars that we are experiencing around the planet and that every day claim the lives of thousands of innocents, many of them children. But if something has become clear to me from my personal experience, it is that sport has been able to, at the very least, take the first steps in the search for peace, which is the least that people deserve in our lives. And as proof of this we see the friendly match played between North Korea and South Korea in 2017 after decades of threats of a conflict that could splash half the world. Yes, that was the first step in an approach that, although it seems distant, has served as a precedent to de-escalate the tension.
Because sport is a very powerful mechanism for the integration of different groups and for the daily life of any person. Sport has served as an inspiration for many people when it comes to overcoming obstacles and all kinds of barriers. Sport is capable of turning what was not possible at first into possible.
And if we have in our hands to reinforce and improve an area of our life that is capable of achieving great changes, why not dedicate more effort to it? I am firmly convinced that all investment in sport is little and in Arrecife there is much to be done.
That is why I ask that this April 6, International Day of Sport for Development and Peace, we reflect and think as public officials if we are really doing enough. To this day it is clear that in Lanzarote it is not.
Roy González
Secretary of Sports, Education and Culture
Local Executive Committee of the PSOE Arrecife
