Global Olympic Movement
Essentially, Olympics is a life philosophy where culture is blended with sport to bring out the best in society where people appreciate the beauty of sport, getting into an interesting mix of culture. Here, the unique human qualities of body, mind and will are given a treat that culminates in bountiful moments. This is done in events that should build up to emotional effects that seek to bring people together united on a front that delivers inner satisfaction even to the most of depressed hearts, full of energy with love that is so enduring, attracting, reassuring and awakening.
Based on the principle of mutual understanding, the global Olympic movement bears the main role of implementing the ideals of Olympics through a network of individuals and organizations that together form the international Olympic movement. The goal is fundamentally to give real contribution to a peaceful world, better by all means. Educating the youth through sport is one major method by which the Olympic movement achieves its mandate across the world.The events have always drawn much interest especially from countries over venues in which the occasion is held in different years. The impact can be viewed from different angles but generally regarded as likely to bring in more positives. The seniors are definitely some of the groups that need to be considered when looking at the impact of the movement and its activities in the various parts of the world.
The games comprise of the winter games and the Olympiad, both of them taking place after every four years and are mainly competitions between team events or individual athletes but certainly not a competition between countries. Both take place every four years. The International Olympic Committee (IOC) has continued to acknowledge education as an important pillar of the movement and has indeed continued to offer excellent support to the global Olympic Academy plus similar institutions that have kept sustained devotion to Olympic education (International Olympic Association, n.d). And this year’s Olympics in Vancouver will definitely bear some impact on the lives of seniors.There is a great relationship that exists between the host community and the global Olympic movement.
First are the local policies which seek to adhere to practical principles of environmental sustainability through practices that reflect respect for environment hence ethical by all means towards a sustainable world. This is a view and stand well envisioned by the global Olympic movement as well through the International Olympic Committee which has maintained a growing attention to the sustainability of the environment. The host community will therefore get a chance to chart a course for the rest of the world regions to keep tuned to the efforts of environmental sustainability. Considering the fact that the global Olympic movement is also a strong advocate of a sustainable environment and practices that support this principle; the venue then becomes the perfect place to demonstrate this to the rest of the world. This is mainly through the participants at individual and organizational levels during the event (Holden, MacKenzie & VanWynsberghe, 2008). Another major and interesting relationship is the liveliness of the city of Vancouver with the spirit of Olympic which is a major characteristic of the global Olympic movement.
The movement encourages liveliness through its friendly and competitive events which together combine to form very exhilarating moments for those present and away. The city of Vancouver, or rather the athletes’ village which is in fact recognized as the world’s most livable city, coupled with quality and magnificence of general life in the city. This is the spirit of Olympic-one of energy that originates from inner peace, generated from a peaceful mind all geared towards a course of making everyone happy.The undertaken local responses in preparation for this event can basically be divided into major areas which include construction; revenue, marketing and communications; service operations & ceremonies; technology & systems; human resources, sustainability & international client services and the finance, legal and CEO’s office. All these are important areas that are charged with different specific responsibilities to ensure that the event is well carried out to a higher percentage of all concerned and the world at large.
The construction division will conduct the planning, construction and delivery of all the necessary venues for this event. This has to be alongside the host city’s policies of sustainability, fashion and best practice. The revenue, marketing and communications department will take the main responsibilities of generating the required revenue for the event in addition to maintaining the needed relationship with all supporting partners through established channels. This division also takes care of all the communication affairs including media and other avenues plus implementation of the torch relays. The functions will involve sales of sponsorship and servicing, ticketing, management of commercial rights and community relations among others.
The Sport, Paralympics Games & Venue Management department will include functions related to the offer of services to the athletes, National Olympic Committees (NOCs) , National Paralympic Committees (NPCs) plus the International Sport Federations (IFs). This department also takes charge of the operations of all training and competing venues to ensure that they are brought to the highest standards possible as defined by the authorities. To achieve all this, the division will execute a number of specific functions some of which include Medical services, sport, Paralympics planning, venue, event services and NOC-NPC Services. The service operations and ceremonies area undertakes the roles of service provisions to officials and athletes, Olympic family, media, broadcasters, transportation, accommodation, VANOC workforce, signage, sponsors, spectators and general logistics. Specifically, funtionwise, they are purely responsible for overylay, Olympic and Paralympic Villages, look of games, cultural Olympiad, Food security integration, press operations and integration of government service. The technology and systems section is the cornerstone of operations of games and planning, systems and technology with specific functions including Internet and accreditation in a technical sense, technical infrastructure, energy services, information systems, timing & scoring.
The Human Resources, sustainability and international client services group will be the masters in seeing to it that all labour utilized is well taken care of under the umbrella of VANOC workforce. This will include recruiting of the workforce, training, retention and outfitting roles. A total work force of more than 55, 000 is the projection which is broken down to 10,000 contractors, 1,400 paid staff, 15,000 ceremony participants, 25,000 volunteers and 3,500 temporary staff. The team will also work towards ensuring that the rich corporate culture of VANOC is adhered to and that human procedures and policies are developed and maintained to the latter. Equally important are the aspects touching on the all crucial issue of sustainability and active participation by the Aborigines plus the meeting of the official language requirements.
Finally, the Finance, Legal and CEO’s Office will play critical functions of money and spending which entail Finance, Legal Services, Project & Information Management, administration, risk management & assurance services, venue construction administration, procurement, government & partner relations and office of the CEO(vancouver2010, 2010). The impacts of the global Olympic movement on the lives of the seniors in the host community of Vancouver are several, both negative and positive though. Enough seniors in Vancouver are poor people and including the Aborigines who cannot afford housing costs. Hence the occurrence of the Olympics event in this venue raised expectations of the masses into believing that their housing problems will come to an end or at least be sorted in some way or another. There is the impact of resource exploitation which translates to taking the available resources from the poor of this Olympic village. The most affected people are the old who do not have the ability to source for themselves given their age and the limits it places on their natural abilities related with work for instance.
Fears are rife that the promised housing construction went overboard because the whole project was indeed over budgeted. As a result there are feelings that instead of the construction of houses that was promised, the Olympic village will in fact be automatically turned into some level of slaves to aid in recouping part of the heavy costs incurred. This will be detrimental to the seniors who are already so stretched beyond the economic mark. How will they survive in these harsh conditions? Who will come to their rescue when all the big budgets do not seem to be addressing even the smallest percentage of their needs that are so desperately glaring? This forms the basis of some of the worrying impacts of the global Olympic movement on the seniors in the Olympic village. Impact on the poor in general is expected to continue showing a disappointing trend, with social problems on the rise (Poverty News, 2010).Analysis by media indicates that the city’s social poor conditions are so heightened and in fact some anti-Olympic activists were expected to stage “poverty campaigns for the purposes of exposing the quietly killing problems to the rest of the world.
It is for example observed that the streets o the Eastern side are so ugly, depicting one of the poorest and miserable slums in an overwhelmingly wealthy city, having the same rates of HIV as some of the Sub-Saharan Africa countries which is a shame for a country that is classified as highly developed. The seniors again form a god part of this picture and more scenarios are not interesting at all. The promised impact was in form of a statement, laid articulately in four pages indicating that the games will be a resource to boost the poor village and the lives of the seniors: protection of civil liberties, construction of housing that is affordable to the poor, avert display displacement of existing residents-most of them seniors and employment of the residents.There are definitely remarkable impacts displayed by renovations in buildings, temporary shelters for homeless seniors, and new houses for majority of seniors and others whose incomes are very low or none at all. This impact would have become more realistic if a large number of the victims were to get involved in receiving the benefits. There is the understanding that the tasks involved in such improvements will always be insurmountable in order to attain maximum satisfaction.
It is equally a fact that this exercise may take several years because a transformation cannot be realized within a short period of time, and not even a few years. The ultimate impact will require many years of planning spanning a few decades of hard work and determination. However there is another ugly side of this very coin whose proponents claim that the several conditions of the seniors actually deepened with the spending boom of the Olympics, approximating $6 billion, giving a negligible impact if any on the lives of seniors in Vancouver and other parts of the population in terms of health, education and long term projections on the overall quality of life (Hill, 2009).In conclusion, the Olympics movement is originally supposed to be a mover of social-economic agenda of the society’s whole, especially the severely disadvantaged. The seniors in the poor parts of Vancouver, just like many other poor regions in the world depend on public resources to enhance their lives if not sustain them in basic requirements for life.
The impacts of such a movement should speak for itself and not dug out at all. When the local people in the Olympic village have an understanding of the enormous amount of resources pulled by the Olympic movement, they certainly get the urge to equally experience the beneficial impact of this great and respectable entity that draws from the village’s environment. It must never come to a point where benefits are so obscure such that they cannot be seen vividly especially by those in desperate conditions. The movement should never be turned into an elitist movement, where the fortunate feel the benefits alone and the poor remain excluded. If well executed, the Olympic movement would make a legacy in the lives of Vancouver’s seniors and the rest of the deserving residents.
This level of achievement can be easily attained through prioritized utilization of resources accrued; based on the most pressing conditions of the poor locals; especially the seniors.
