Ambroise Tézenas

Paris Metropolitan Area, France
co-directed with Frédéric Delangle

Photographed on assignment with the International Olympic Committee’s Olympism Made Visible project in 2019
Artistic Director + curator: Amy Pereira

Social Integration Through Sports in the City

The Parisian banlieues, areas of social housing on the outskirts of the French capital, have been a source of concern for a long time. Poverty, underachievement in school, unemployment, social exclusion, and drug-related crime are just some of the challenges that young people in these areas face. Confrontations between different religious and ethnic groups are common, and police brutality and disproportional targeting of minorities are a reality. All these issues shape the daily lives of the residents and have a significant impact on the most vulnerable part of the population: children and adolescents.
For the past 20 years, Sport dans la Ville has been France’s leading non-profit organisation serving disadvantaged kids through sports and job readiness training in Parisian suburbs and throughout the country. Young people between the ages of 6 and 25 can join free sports sessions offered by Sport dans la Ville in their area, led and supervised by qualified coaches. The organisation’s programmes promote equal opportunities through social and professional integration and have touched the lives of more than 15,000 young people across the nation.

Photographs from Olympism Made Visible are shared with the general public through exhibitions and special installations realised by the Olympic Museum in collaboration with cultural partners including photography festivals, museums, and city agencies, to bring visibility and positive recognition to organisations and individuals around the world who put Olympism into action by helping to change people’s lives for the better through sport, in often challenging circumstances.

Exhibitions of selected works from Olympism Made Visiblerealised to date include presentations at
Kolga Tbilisi Photo, Tbilisi, Georgia 
SPRINT Photography Festival, Albi, France 
Milan Image Art Fair, Milano, Italy 
Thailand Biennale, Korat, Thailand 
Olympic Agora, Tokyo, Japan