A farewell to Stephen Reynard as he leaves sportanddev.org to work in the field

Stephen Reynard, project manager at sportanddev for the past 2.5 years, is taking on a new challenge. He will move to Togo as technical advisor rolling up the sleeves of his shirt and implementing the on the ground activities of the German ministerial initiative “More Space for Sport: 1,000 Chances for Africa” in Togo. For Stephen, having experienced S&D at the grassroots level when setting up his own NGO in the DR Congo prior to joining the sportanddev team, the new job will bring the desired real life experience. He will once again be in close contact with the target group while at the same time being able to make use his exceptional negotiation skills with important communal stakeholders and decision-makers. All of this will take place in the language of choice – French – giving continuity to his ambition to drive S&D in the francophone world and to make initiatives visible.

For the past 70 newsletter editions, Stephen’s contribution entered your mailbox in rotation with the other two Operating Team members in every third edition. His smile and editorial introduction reflected his positive outlook and engaging nature to get things going. Reaching out to the community in interviews and requests for information, Stephen showed his genuine interest in what was happening on the ground. He was equally capable of engaging with political decision-makers and proved able to break down big ideas in digestible pieces of information to keep the community informed, trigger debate and spice it with commentary. Stephen contributed greatly to the growth of sportanddev over past 2.5 years driving the launch and management of the French website and opening up the S&D debates to the francophone world, allowing access to information and networking tools to those that do not speak English.

During the last 2.5 years, from the 10th anniversary of sportanddev.org until today, the community grew significantly and became more professional. Today, we succeed in making people believe more easily that sport can trigger positive change, that play is an essential tool for development and that children and youth are to stand as the focus of attention if we hope to see genuine development over the next 15 years under the guidance of the Sustainable Development Goals.

The Operating Team at sportanddev.org thanks Stephen for a his contributions to keeping us all informed about this growth, for sharing his good ideas and enthusiasm for the field, for engaging actively with the French speaking world and for having been a good colleague. We wish him all the best, count on his reports from West Africa and welcome our new colleague Kathleen Woodhouse-Ledermann, who will join the team as project officer.