GOA, UNICEF, French Diplomatic Office unveil Paris 2024 exhibit

The Guyana Olympic Association (GOA); the French Diplomatic Office and UNICEF have collaborated to establish an exhibition on the Paris Olympic Games 2024, which are approximately three months away.
The exhibition, which will be housed at the National Library in Georgetown, will be open to public viewing, with a target audience of school-aged children and youth.
As he declared the exhibition open, Prime Minister, Brigadier (Retired) Mark Phillips highlighted Guyana’s alignment with the Olympic values, while expressing a hope to see our athletes on the big stage this year.
“Guyana enthusiastically embraces the spirit of the Olympic Games. Guyana will be represented in Paris, our athletes will showcase our athletic prowess and do so in the spirit that reflects the Olympic ideals of peace, friendship and respect. In doing so, Guyana plays a vital role in creating a better world, where the Olympic ideals of peace, friendship and respect are upheld and celebrated on the world stage,” Guyana’s Prime Minister articulated.

Earlier, GOA President Godfrey Munroe divulged why the partnership was such an easy one, highlighting that it will build pillars for acceleration of sport involvement.
“As an Olympic Committee, we were quite pleased to partner with the French Embassy. Last year when Chargé D’affaires came for a visit, it was an easy decision because it fulfils our mandate, which is to mould the values of the Olympics, fair play and all those intrinsic values we would want our kids, our citizens and everyone in our nation to have,” Munroe shared.
He went on to divulge, “The central thrust of this is to ensure that we inspire new generations. So, that they could inspire and aspire because as a developing nation, I think that we are quite poised at this time to leapfrog and to set the foundation and pillars for us to accelerate.”
As UNICEF’s Deputy Representative Gabriel Vockel touched on how the shared values align with UNICEF’s work, Sport Minister Charles Ramson Jr labelled the activity as the perfect platform to instil such values.
“The Olympic Games are coming up and France is hosting them, so, it’s a pleasure to be part of this partnership with the Association and with the French Embassy here, because it’s all about shared values, which we’ve already mentioned just now. And values, I hope, we would say are really universal. Respect, integrity, trust, accountability, care and sustainability. I was just reflecting: in 2024, it will be the first gender-parity games, it’s kind of about time I think,” Vockel expressed.
On the other hand, Ramson Jr stated, “To achieve global objectives where those objectives are so difficult and challenging, but at the same time, there’s also movements or objectives that are not in alignment, it is important that the partnerships are formed and fortified. The Games represent one of the vehicles by which that representation of who we are as a nation, but also this global movement to advance what is important to humankind. This is the perfect platform, where we get to show why it’s important.”
According to the GOA President, other activities such as an essay competition and public sport engagements are planned alongside the intended movement of the exhibition across the country.