Civil society partnerships

Olympic Torch Relay visits United Nations for the first time ever

© Evan Schneider/UN

Eighteen-year-old Toni Jones is one of the two torchbearers chosen by UNICEF.

NEW YORK, 19 June 2004—Standing beside the white awning of the Delegate’s entrance to the General Assembly, Olympic Torch in hand, Toni Jones waited.  Patience is a quality her family learned years ago when they ended up in a UNICEF-sponsored refugee camp in Sierra Leone. 

She hears the sound of the trumpets and begins running along the sidewalk, bearing aloft the Olympic Flame, ancient symbol of peace and truce, toward Kofi Annan, Secretary-General of the United Nations, who waits on stage in front of a darkened cauldron.

Fleeing the on-going strife in their native Liberia, the Jones’ spent four years hoping to return to Monrovia, where the family lived and owned property.  War raged in the country until last year, and by then, Toni and her family had moved on to Queens, New York. 

Toni has become an activist, speaking out on behalf of the children in Liberia, thousands of whom were recruited to fight in the war of adults as child soldiers, their lives and health uprooted.  This winter, she will go back to Liberia, bearing funds and youthful energy to rebuild a destroyed refugee centre for child soldiers, internally displaced children and other vulnerable children. 

© Evan Schneider/UN

Secretary-General Kofi Annan (right) passes the torch to seventeen-year-old Daniel Mejia (left). Daniel then carries the Olympic flame out of the United Nations ground.

Across the crowded UN plaza, another Torchbearer waits, less patiently.   Daniel Mejia’s parents, Blanca and Bernardo, immigrated from Colombia to the United States of America 20 years ago.  Their move was fueled by economic need and the sense that their country was no longer a safe place to raise a family.  Daniel, 17, has just graduated from high school and is college-bound, as his parents had hoped. Bernardo’s brother was gunned down a few years ago, victim of 40-year long struggle for power.   Daniel will study to one day become an airline pilot, flying the jumbo jets of the future.  His mother and father hope to be able to return to Colombia one day.  “Take away the war and conflict, and it is a beautiful country, a paradise,” Blanca said longingly.

This wind-whipped mid-summer night the Olympic Flame will bathe the United Nations, the world-body of member states where the search for resolution to conflict is a daily struggle, for the first time in history.  In 2003, the 190 UN Member States unanimously adopted an Olympic Truce Resolution – more countries than ever before. 

UNICEF has called on all governmetns to respect the Truce  - a cessation of conflict immediately before, during and after the Olympic Games.  “In too many countries today children are literally running from war,” said Carol Bellamy, UNICEF Executive Director.  “We believe children everywhere have the right to grow to adulthood in health, peace and dignity.  But it is up to us adults to make that right a reality.  The Olympic Truce would show the world that peace is within our grasp."

The trumpets sound, Toni begins running, long strides – she sprinted competitively in high school and her Coach is in the crowd – and as she steps off the curb she breaks into a smile (“I didn’t fall,” she later said.) then takes the steps up the stage to hand off the flame to the Secretary-General.  They have met before at the last UN Special Session for Children in 2002.  She later wrote to tell him she thinks he is “cool.”  She still thinks he is.

Mr. Annan takes the Torch and lights the cauldron in front of the crowd of 600.  Toni steps down and runs toward her family. 

Later, the Secretary-General addresses the audience:

“It is wonderfully fitting that this flame, symbolizing friendship among nations, should shed its light and grace on the United Nations,” he said.  “The Olympic Truce is a unique concept.  This ancient Greek tradition has been revived by the United Nations General assembly as a call to all Member States to stop fighting while athletes from the entire community of nations meet under the noble flame of this torch. This Torch should be understood as more than a symbol.  While limited in duration and scope, it can offer a point of consensus, a pause to open a dialogue, a chance to provide relief to a suffering population.  In short, it can offer a window of hope.”

Now it is Daniel’s turn to take the Torch from the Secretary-General to run onto First Avenue where the Torch will travel with another runner up 42nd Street to Times Square.  There, its journey around New York City will stop for the night, before continuing on to Athens where it will burn through the day and night for all of the 16 days of the Olympics.

Sport, it is said, will not impose peace.  But it might inspire it.

For the two teenage Torchbearers, friends from high school brought closer by the excitement of being chosen to carry the Flame, and whose countries have been destroyed by struggles for power, greed and corruption, the future holds hope.  “Peace in today’s world can happen,” said Toni, “but we as human beings have to remember and think about our fellows.”

The 2004 Olympic Torch Relay will be the first truly global journey for the Olympic flame: for the first time in history, the torch will visit six continents, travelling through 34 cities in 27 countries over five weeks.

This year’s Olympic Torch Relay is special in another way: In cooperation with the International Olympic Committee, UNICEF was able to select three torchbearers to participate, helping bring the issue of child protection to the world’s attention. Each of these torchbearers has a unique story to tell. Individually and collectively, their stories demonstrate the need for creating a protective environment for children, and illustrate how real-world solutions can be applied to accomplish that goal.

Child labour activist runs in Olympic Torch Relay

 

Search