2 minute read
Members’ Honours
MCC Member Bob Munro CM recently received the 2022 Distinguished Alumni Award for the Arts from his Canadian alma mater, McMaster University.
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This award is presented to alumni of McMaster University who have distinguished themselves through outstanding scholarship, research, or creative contributions to the arts or sciences, or service to society.
The award honours alumni whose accomplishments and contributions are of national or international significance, and have had a transformative impact on their field of endeavour.
Bob Munro is pictured here receiving the 2022 McMaster University Distinguished Alumni Award from McMaster President Dr David Farrar. The honour was awarded for Bob’s work on sustainable development and also with the youth in Mathare, one of Africa’s largest and poorest slums.
The award was in recognition of his many achievements over the last five decades in initiating and improving sustainable development policies from global to local levels, as well as for being the Founder/Chairman of the Mathare Youth Sports Association (MYSA) which, since 1987, has been a global pioneer for the now worldwide sport for development and peace movement.
Bob began an international career that led to setting up a new Environmental Division in the UN’s economic Commission for Europe in Geneva. He helped prepare the Action Plan at the first UN Environment Conference in 1972 in Stockholm, which launched the worldwide environmental movement.
Soon after he helped set up the UN Environmental Programme (UNEP) in Nairobi as well as the UN-Habitat agency. During the 1980s and 90s Bob was a Senior Policy Advisor for the World Commission in Environment and Development (WCED).
In his spare time, Bob founded the Mathare Youth Sports Association (MYSA) in one of Africa’s largest and poorest slums, finding inspiration in his own boyhood experiences of playing sport.
MYSA uses sport in combination with community outreach and development activities to give young people the skills and confidence they need to aim higher, achieve more and build brighter futures for themselves.
Over 30,000 boys and girls from Mathare now participate in the MYSA self-help youth sports, environmental cleanups, AIDS prevention, leadership training, jailed kids’ rehabilitation, slum libraries and other community service projects. In addition to helping themselves, the Mathare youth also help youngsters in similar projects across Africa.
There are now over 150,000 MYSA members and alumni in Kenya and abroad, and in the decades since it began, the youth from the Mathare slums have become the global pioneers in using sport as a force for good by bringing people together to celebrate athletic achievements and inspiring the now worldwide movement on sport for development and peace.
MYSA has earned numerous international awards, including two Nobel Peace nominations but, says Bob, MYSA's most important achievement is producing new heroes, role models and leaders within and outside Kenya.
As a boy, through sport, we learned vital lessons and social skills. We learnt that achievement is our reward for self-discipline and training, for getting fit and, most importantly, for extra effort and teamwork. We learned to cope with losing as well as winning, gaining insights into our weaknesses and self-confidence from our victories. We also learned to respect the rules, our coaches, our referees, our teammates and even our opponents.
Three decades later the Mathare Youth Sports Association became my payback, giving the poor youth in Mathare the same chance as I had had.
Bob Munro
Founder and Executive Chairman of the Mathare Youth Sports Association (MYSA)
