Refugees’ Voice Launches on Eurosport

Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD) Sports Europe is set to launch new initiatives on World Refugee Day (20 June) to champion the stories of refugee athletes and to demonstrate the power of sport in helping displaced people to reshape their futures.

Refugees’ Voice is Eurosport’s new series which shares stories from Refugee Athlete Scholarship-holders* hoping to be selected for the Refugee Olympic Team (EOR) at Olympic Games Paris 2024. A monthly first-person profile will be published on Eurosport.com in multiple languages, interviews will form new episodes of Eurosport’s purpose-driven magazine show, The Power of Sport, and content will be shared across its social media platforms to maximise the reach of athletes’ messages.

Scott Young, SVP Content and Production at Warner Bros. Discovery Sports Europe, said: “Our mission is to unlock the power of sport by connecting our audiences with stories and athletes that inspire, inform and entertain. There is perhaps no greater story in sport that embodies this than the journey of a refugee competing at the Olympic Games. We will harness our international scale to maximise the reach of these important stories from some truly incredible humans, from World Refugee Day to Paris 2024 and beyond”.

The first profile tells the story of Cindy Ngamba, a boxer born in Cameroon but left for the United Kingdom when she was 11 to find a better life with her brother. Cindy’s homosexuality means it is unsafe for her to return to Cameroon - one of 64 nation states recognised by the United Nations** where it is illegal to be gay and many members of the LGBTQ+ community face imprisonment or violence. Cindy, now 24, trains in Sheffield in the north of England and has obtained refugee status while awaiting a British passport before she can compete for Team GB.

Cindy Ngamba said: “I was given refugee status two years ago. It’s illegal to be gay in my country, so if I was sent back, I could have been imprisoned. I was nearly sent back in 2019 when I was held at a detention camp. That was one of the scariest experiences of my life. 

“In the UK, people never ask me about my sexuality, they ask about Cindy. Cindy the boxer. But I’m very open and I have no problem talking about it. With my boxing, I think I’m able to push a bit further because if I overcame everything I have so far: my journey into the UK, being away from my mum, the bullying, learning boxing, my papers, my sexuality… when I’m in the ring and they say ‘30 seconds left’, I know I can push through. That’s my mentality. That’s the mind of Cindy.”

Refugees’ Voice is part of WBD’s ongoing and award-winning ‘Home Crowd’ campaign which unites fans behind the Refugee Olympic Team (EOR). The initiative builds on the WBD-produced ‘In Conversation’ series, which together with the IOC and UNHCR, brought together exclusive interviews between refugee athletes including Syrian swimmer Yusra Mardini and UNHCR ambassadors such as Canadian footballer Alphonso Davies and USA swimming icon Katie Ledecky ahead of Olympic Games Tokyo 2020. 

*There are currently 53 scholarship-holders as part of the Refugee Athlete Support Programme which is managed by the Olympic Refuge Foundation and funded by Olympic Solidarity.

**Source: https://database.ilga.org/criminalisation-consensual-same-sex-sexual-acts