Sport & Design Blog: live from Tokyo, Japan!
Beijing 2008 Olympic Games
Dreaming big @ Beijing 2008
Artwork by DUZZ: original project poster, featuring Yuki and Ume (Hope 81’s first Youth Sports Ambassadors)
Two years ago, we had a big dream of going to Beijing to see the Gold Medal Mens Basketball Game live. And we wanted to build some new friendship through streetball along the way. So with zero financial support and no tickets, we took a chance and went for it! The project was led by our two Youth Sports Ambassadors from Tokyo (Yuki and Ume). We worked with the Ribbon Magnet Group/MsDS, which helped out with our HIV Awareness campaign, plus a bunch of great local supporters in Beijing (Mark, More Free & CL Smooth Crew, all the ballers from Dong Dan, Di Tan Gun, and Chao Yang Park) and so many more people who stepped up and supported us behind the scenes. Here’s a look back at an incredible journey:
Our first trip to Beijing turned out to be a key starting point for our Sport for P.E.A.C.E. initiative, and set the stage for our other grassroots campaigns. A nice reminder that anything’s possible. Let’s keep dreaming big, Japan!
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Big Hopes, Big Change!
If you want to see change, where do you begin? We started from...da-da-da-daaaa...a few sketches on a napkin in a restaurant back in 2007. Okay we admit, we didn’t exactly have a master plan, but as Tom Peters writes in his work, The Little Big Things (which we’ve found to be VERY helpful, thanks Tom!), sometimes we need to just work things out as we go...
(Tip #81 was our favorite. You know why...)
81. Big Change—All at Once!
The power of "getting going on everything at once" with but a sliver of a master plan (a couple of
"napkin" sketches) was that we could envision from the outset the vague outline of what was
going to (more or less) end up happening—thence we could adjust like crazy, improvise
constantly, destroy and create using the entire palette, and dramatically reshape the overall
work, and even the overall concept, as we went along. Which, of course, means we didn't really
reject my beloved Rapid Experimentation Method—we just did it on and amidst a Grand Platform
called "everything is in motion and up for grabs."
I'm not sure I'd do things, big things, this way in every instance, but I do think there are times
when such an "all at once" approach is merited—when you have a Big Idea but need to be living
"in the middle of it," with all ends loose ends, to figure out what it means.
On the two year anniversary of our Youth Sports Ambassadors trip to the Beijing Olympics, here’s a look back at how we turned BIG HOPES into real change:
We started learning the ropes with trips to the UN Sport for Development and Peace Ministerial Conference in Beijing, the International Peace & Sport Forum in Monaco (2008 & 2009), a Northeast Asian Leadership Conference in Seoul, and Hope 81 Founder Jason Hutson’s guest lecture on sport for social change at Beijing Sports University...
We made our first original Youth Sports Ambassadors project back in 2008, exactly two years ago! (08.08.2008). Facilitating new exchange between Japanese and Chinese youth basketball communities at the Beijing 2008 Olympics...
We rallied Tokyo’s community of youth athletes, professional athletes, sporting goods store owners and more to donate hundreds of new and used out-of-season sportswear items with our “1 Assist” campaign. Then we delivered the sportswear all the way to the remote mountain jungle villages of Papua New Guinea’s Western Province...
Last but not least, we brought a team of Japan’s top basketball players to compete in the Quai 54 International Streetball Championships, held in Paris every summer. Introducing the first ever team from Asia on the main stage at this huge Michael Jordan-sponsored event, with the goal of helping Asian basketball rise...
We’ll have plenty of information to share on our new website (coming very soon!). Thanks to everyone out there for supporting our grassroots efforts these past two years. From Tokyo to PNG, Paris to Beijing... We’re lucky to be surrounded by so many active and creative volunteers and wouldn’t be here without all of your contributions. Lets keep it up!
(Tip #81 was our favorite. You know why...)
81. Big Change—All at Once!
The power of "getting going on everything at once" with but a sliver of a master plan (a couple of
"napkin" sketches) was that we could envision from the outset the vague outline of what was
going to (more or less) end up happening—thence we could adjust like crazy, improvise
constantly, destroy and create using the entire palette, and dramatically reshape the overall
work, and even the overall concept, as we went along. Which, of course, means we didn't really
reject my beloved Rapid Experimentation Method—we just did it on and amidst a Grand Platform
called "everything is in motion and up for grabs."
I'm not sure I'd do things, big things, this way in every instance, but I do think there are times
when such an "all at once" approach is merited—when you have a Big Idea but need to be living
"in the middle of it," with all ends loose ends, to figure out what it means.
On the two year anniversary of our Youth Sports Ambassadors trip to the Beijing Olympics, here’s a look back at how we turned BIG HOPES into real change:
We started learning the ropes with trips to the UN Sport for Development and Peace Ministerial Conference in Beijing, the International Peace & Sport Forum in Monaco (2008 & 2009), a Northeast Asian Leadership Conference in Seoul, and Hope 81 Founder Jason Hutson’s guest lecture on sport for social change at Beijing Sports University...
We made our first original Youth Sports Ambassadors project back in 2008, exactly two years ago! (08.08.2008). Facilitating new exchange between Japanese and Chinese youth basketball communities at the Beijing 2008 Olympics...
We rallied Tokyo’s community of youth athletes, professional athletes, sporting goods store owners and more to donate hundreds of new and used out-of-season sportswear items with our “1 Assist” campaign. Then we delivered the sportswear all the way to the remote mountain jungle villages of Papua New Guinea’s Western Province...
Last but not least, we brought a team of Japan’s top basketball players to compete in the Quai 54 International Streetball Championships, held in Paris every summer. Introducing the first ever team from Asia on the main stage at this huge Michael Jordan-sponsored event, with the goal of helping Asian basketball rise...
We’ll have plenty of information to share on our new website (coming very soon!). Thanks to everyone out there for supporting our grassroots efforts these past two years. From Tokyo to PNG, Paris to Beijing... We’re lucky to be surrounded by so many active and creative volunteers and wouldn’t be here without all of your contributions. Lets keep it up!
Mandela Day: Celebrate Peace Action!
July 18 2010 Filed in: Hope 81
“Sport has the power to change the world. It has the power to unite in a way that little else does. It speaks to youth in a language they understand. Sport can create hope where once there was only despair. It is more powerful than governments in breaking down racial barriers. It laughs in the face of all types of discrimination.”
- Nelson Mandela
Today, the world celebrates the life of revolutionary South African peacebuilder Nelson Mandela, on his 92nd birthday! His incredible legacy continues to inspire peace action around the globe, and our Hope 81 community would like to thank Madiba for helping us get to where we are today.
Mandela’s quote above is from a speech given at the 2000 Laureus Awards. Its a wonderful reminder of what sports-based initiatives can do to help ease tension and conflict in the world. After researching about this topic (and writing a 175-page masters thesis on Sport for Social Change in East Asia), Hope 81 founder Jason Hutson is aiming to find a way for Mandela’s words to become source of inspiration for action amongst East Asian civil society and government leaders. If you’ve seen Invictus or read the book Playing the Enemy, you know the story of how sport helped a nation grow together across racial barriers. Now, bringing an entire region together with a history as complex as it is here in East Asia, through sports-based exchange...it may sound like just another pipedream. The issues concerning postwar reconciliation are deep and one must be sensitive to the feelings of hardship and pain so many have suffered. No doubt, its still a very difficult subject to discuss for people here, and sport alone is not the suggestion being made. Can we find a common ground through shared interests and aspirations in games, and from that as a starting point, create a new culture of peace and harmony? A good starting point was to be the FIFA 2002 Japan-Korea World Cup, which many hoped would bring the two nations closer together and create a lasting sense of peace and friendship. Almost eight years later, we have little to speak of in terms of a lasting legacy for peace and cooperation through sport between Japan and Korea. Basically the problem stems from the fact that we had a one-off, mega event with no framework to grow more grassroots exchange. Such a framework would require government leaders to step up and take the initiative from the top, invoking a concerted effort with strategies, para-public alliances, policies, funding, etc.
Actually this sort of ‘Sport for Peace’ plan is already in motion, though for various reasons, it hasn’t reached East Asia yet. The Sport for Peace and Development agenda has been gradually assembled over roughly the past ten years by the United Nations, under the leadership of Kofi Annon, Adolph Oggi, and now Wilfred Lemke. The UNOSDP office works with support from the international NGO Right to Play and the now UN-based Sport for Development and Peace International Working Group, which published a special Recommendations to Government document in 2008-- measuring the effectiveness of sports-based initiatives being used in areas of peacebuilding, conflict resolution, reconciliation, human rights, gender equality, HIV/AIDS, poverty, and more. While Japan, China and Korea continue the struggle to find a lasting sense of reconciliation of their war-torn past, hopefully government leaders in the region are considering the potential power of sport to change our world, to unite our East Asian community, to connect East Asian youth across borders, to give our younger and elder generations hope where once there was only despair, and to help government start a large-scale healing process for the collective people of this region.
Bringing sports-based initiatives to help East Asian reconciliation on a broad scale requires a great deal of help from top-level institutions. But of course, it must also start with local action on the ground level = People Power. This is the goal of Mandela Day. To encourage everyone on the planet to step up and work toward social justice, fight against racism and discrimination, help protect the environment, support under served communities in need of relief... there is something you can do in your local community today. Go for it, and celebrate this day of peace action! So what are we doing at Hope 81 today?? We’ve chosen Mandela Day as the official launch of our new ‘Sport & Peace for East Asian Community’ (SPEAC) action campaign. We’ll have more to share here on our blog in the days ahead, and a special section on our new website (hopefully coming early August!) with feature stories, academic reports, new projects and more...
Thank you, Nelson Mandela! Find out more about his ongoing efforts for social justice on the Nelson Mandela Foundation site.
Life, Basketball and Japan
March 02 2010 Filed in: Rising Suns | Hope 81
When I speak about Hope 81, people often ask me why Japan? To me, its sort of a no-brainer. I love my life here! But I guess the idea of a guy from California launching a nonprofit organization in Japan might seem a bit out-of-the-ordinary (or intriguing) to some, so the question deserves a better answer than that. Sometimes my answer turns into a long story of academic discourse, overlapping with personal anecdotes and so many twists and turns. I wish I had a 30-second version. Trust me -- I’m working on it. For now, here’s a special blog entry to give you a better idea.
Continue reading >>>
81 things to know
February 14 2010 Filed in: Hope 81
Well, not that many! Here’s five things you should know about the number 81...
#5. The name of a famous Japanese fable = 'The 81 Brothers'
#4. The month, day and year MTV launched its first programming (08.01.1981)
#3. Legendary singer and revolutionary hero Bob Marley passed away in 1981
#2. NBA All-Star & 2008 Olympic Gold Medalist Kobe Bryant scored 81 points in a single NBA game
#1. The international calling code for our organization’s home base (+81) = Japan!
If you can think of any more, post it in the comments below!