Sean Fitzpatrick – Time Well Shared
During the Covid-19 pandemic, Laureus Global Partner IWC have been sharing messages of solidarity and positivity through the organisation’s Time Well Shared initiative. The latest video to be released features former All Blacks player Sean Fitzpatrick, who is now Chairman of the Laureus World Sports Academy.
IWC, which has been a Global Partner of Laureus since 2005, works alongside Sean and the Academy in their global mission to utilise the power of sport to improve the lives of young people.
Rather than placing the focus of his video on his legendary rugby union career, Sean instead discusses Laureus Sport for Good and its success over the last two decades. Reminiscing about a life-changing trip he and fellow Laureus Academy Member Tony Hawk made to Sierra Leone’s Right to Play project 15 years ago, he recalls teaching the children he met the basics of rugby and the New Zealand Haka.
Laureus Sport for Good uses the power of sport to end violence, discrimination and disadvantage for children and young people all around the world. During the global Covid-19 pandemic, the needs of the disadvantaged and often vulnerable young people in the more than 200 programmes Laureus supports around the world and the wider Sport for Development sector have never been greater.
Through the Sport for Good Response Fund, organisations will be empowered to deliver new or adaptive provisions to continue supporting children and young people during the current pandemic.
Reflecting on his visit to Right to Play in Sierra Leone in 2005, Sean said: “I was working with a group of boys and girls, teaching them how to pass and kick the rugby ball that they’d never seen before. Then I thought, why not teach them the traditional New Zealand Haka that the All Blacks perform before they play? They picked it up straight away. The smiles on their face will live with me forever and a day. The visit affected us so greatly, it changed our lives. These children making the most of their situation. For us, it was definitely Time Well Shared.”
