“One unique achievement of Singapore Youth Olympic Games (SYOG) is the promotion of the Olympic values of Friendship, Respect and Excellence among some 3,000 international youths by incorporating education and culture with sports. This resonates strongly with the Soka Gakkai International’s (SGI) and SGS’s goals of value creation and human empowerment through activities related to peace, culture and education.
For this reason, SSA feels particularly honoured and grateful to be a part of SYOG. In addition to some 730 SSA youths performing and supporting behind the scene at the SYOG Opening Ceremony, another 234 SSA youth supported SYOG in various capacities as part of the 20,000-strong volunteer force.
Hosted by Singapore from August 14 to 26, the Singapore 2010 Summer Youth Olympic Games SYOG was hailed as a great success. This inaugural event saw some 3,600 youth athletes between 14 to 18 years of age from 204 National Olympic Councils (NOC) gathered to partake in 26 different sports, as well as educational and cultural exchanges. The SYOG was declared opened by Singapore President S R Nathan on August 14, at Float@Marina Bay. The Opening Ceremony was a theatrical-style cultural display of mass dances, songs, drama, lights and fireworks, with the entire Singapore downtown skyline as the backdrop. Some 27,000 spectators at the gallery and an estimated two billion viewers worldwide were treated to an audio-visual fiesta that conveyed two parallel heart-warming stories – the Singapore story and the Youth Olympic story.
For some 600 Singapore Soka Association youths, and some 130 youths supporting behind the scene performing in the segment of the SYOG opening, titled “Playing with Fire, Pushing the Limits”, it was indeed a great privilege and a once-in-a-lifetime experience to contribute to the success of this historical event. This item, with its underlying message – to be bold and adventurous to push one’s potential to the limits and create a new era – sent a deeply meaningful message to both the budding athletes, as well as the audiences worldwide. For the SSA participants, it was a message that they could readily identify with, as they recalled the words of SGI President Daisaku Ikeda: “It is the mission of youth to break through limitations and obstacles. Those who can do so are true successors.”
This spirit of youth is also carried in the hearts of another 234 SSA youths who worked tirelessly in hosting the foreign athletes and officials, taking care of their well-being and forging strong bonds of friendship and goodwill among them. The SSA volunteers were deeply motivated when they learned that the Olympic values of Excellence, Friendship and Respect has been strongly highlighted in the SYOG through its various educational and cultural programmes to promote a better and more peaceful world.
These are the same values that the SSA youths have been imbued with as part of the humanistic movement of the SGI. It is no wonder then that the SSA youths gave their all for the SYOG with the passionate sense of mission that they are not just helping to create history but also to create a better future!