The Ghana Olympic Committee (GOC) will host an Olympic Values Education Programme (OVEP) event at the University of Ghana, Legon, on Tuesday, September 22, 2026, engaging approximately 500 children in a day of sport-based learning built around the Olympic values of excellence, friendship, and respect.
OVEP is the International Olympic Committee’s global values-education initiative, designed to use the language of sport to instil core Olympic principles in young people.
Tuesday’s programme in Legon forms part of a broader GOC effort to extend Olympic values education into schools and communities across the country, timed deliberately ahead of the first Youth Olympic Games to be staged on African soil.
Dakar, Senegal, will make history next month as the host of the inaugural African edition of the Youth Olympic Games, a milestone moment for the continent’s young athletes and a significant marker in the Olympic Movement’s global expansion.
Ghana is bringing Olympic values directly to young people, not just competing for medals.
A Day Built Around Values, Not Just Competition
For the 500 children taking part, the Legon event is designed to translate the abstract ideals of Olympism into lived experience.
Through structured sport-based activities, participants will engage directly with the concepts of excellence, friendship, and respect, the three pillars on which the Olympic values framework is built.
The approach reflects OVEP’s underlying philosophy: that sport, when properly structured, can be one of the most effective vehicles for teaching young people life values that extend well beyond the field of play.
The initiative also connects Ghana’s youngest sporting generation to a genuinely historic moment. With the Dakar 2026 Youth Olympic Games marking the first time the Games have been held anywhere in Africa, Tuesday’s programme gives children in Legon a tangible link to an event that will shape the continent’s Olympic story for years to come.
The Legon outreach is one strand of a sustained investment by the GOC and Ghana’s Ministry of Sport and Recreation in youth sports development, running in parallel with preparations for Team Ghana’s participation at the Youth Olympic Games. Ghana is set to send a 13-athlete delegation to Dakar, and officials have increasingly framed grassroots values programming as complementary to on-field preparation rather than separate from it.
By pairing competitive readiness with values-based education, the GOC is positioning its Youth Olympic Games campaign as one that extends beyond medal ambitions. Tuesday’s event at the University of Ghana underscores that approach: for the 500 children involved, the day is designed to leave them with an understanding of Olympism that will outlast any single competition.