Beautiful Rebellion: Johann Olav Koss

Rebellion is the act of resisting convention. A Beautiful Rebellion is resisting convention to provoke a movement to capture our collective capacity to empower.

Give a child a ball, and it changes everything. Sport and play have the power to improve the lives of children in disadvantaged areas of the world, creating a more healthy and safe world. This is what Johann Olav Koss believes in and what the global organization he founded, Right To Play, has believed in since it was formed over a decade ago. Only in our globalized world of today could a passion for a sport where you race on ice have an impact on children in refugee camps in Africa. How? Koss took his love of speed skating to the top of the Olympic podium, four times. Then, that same passion fuelled him to become one of the greatest ambassadors of sport the world has ever seen. As an aspiring Olympian in his early twenties, Koss took a fateful trip to Eritrea, Africa. Thousands of miles away from his home in Norway, Koss experienced the poverty of a war-torn famine-striken nation. And then he witnessed the transformation of a group of boys when one of them removed his shirt, turned the long sleeves into knots to create a soccer ball allowing them to play, laugh, and find temporary relief from their squalor. There he found new perspective, his reality changed from one of a laser-sharp focus on his sport ambitions to a world where he felt compelled to contribute to something greater than oneself. It was a realization that sport and his role as an athlete could have a much greater impact than he had ever imagined up to that point. He retired soon after, in his prime at 25 years of age and coming off a successful 1994 Olympics, to follow his calling. Koss is driven by a simple desire: to give people hope. This is an extremely powerful thing in the landscape he plays, sometimes so bleak that it's overwhelming for most of us to even know where to begin to help. There are over 42 million refugees worldwide - that's more than the entire population of California - that have become displaced as a result of natural disasters, political unrest and wars. In developing countries many people earn less than a dollar a day, have no access to primary education and maternal and child mortality rates are still high. Koss' contribution to transforming lives has been both tactical and strategic. He's set up his organization RTP to deliver sport programs in more than 20 countries and close to 835,000 children weekly. More than just parachuting in soccer balls, the programs build local capacity and coach-leadership. Meanwhile, he's advancing global policy for the integration of sport and play into national and international development priorities. RTP programming has been recognized as best practices and tools to help reach the Millennium Development Goals. Koss' brilliance also lies in his vision to apply the theories of sports marketing to the field of sport-for-development. RTP uses the special power of Olympic and professional athletes (like Chelsea F.C., Allyson Felix and Clara Hughes) as a way to build awareness and raise funds for RTP programs. Koss' accomplishments as an athlete have been surpassed by the impact he's made as a social entrepreneur and founder of Right To Play. By 2012, he has a goal of reaching one million children on a weekly basis.

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