Sir Mo Farah and British Sporting Icons Call on Government to Initiate a New National Plan to Get Kids Moving
On World Children’s Day, Sir Mo Farah personally delivered a letter addressed to the Prime Minister, signed by Hannah Cockroft, Adam Peaty, Max Whitlock, Keely Hodgkinson and other Team GB Olympians and Paralympians.
November 20 - On World Children’s Day, Sir Mo Farah, the Youth Sport Trust’s National School Sport Champion, joined forces with fellow sporting icons to call for the British Government to harness the power of play and sport to improve the lives of young people.
Sir Mo Farah hand-delivered an open letter addressed to the Prime Minister to Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, Lisa Nandy, at Downing Street. The letter urges the Government to create a new national plan that ensures every child has the opportunity to be physically active every day.
The multi-Olympic, World and European champion has united leading figures from British sport to support his call for change. Co-signatories include seven-time Paralympic Champion and Youth Sport Trust Champion Hannah Cockroft OBE, triple Olympic champions Max Whitlock OBE and Adam Peaty OBE, the most successful British Paralympian of all time, Dame Sarah Storey, and Paris 2024 800m gold medallist Keely Hodgkinson.
Their intervention comes at a crucial time, as only 19% of children aged 1-5 and 47% of 5–18-year-olds are meeting the recommended daily levels of physical activity. The sporting icons are using World Children’s Day, which emphasises fundamental rights for children including health and play, to lay down a marker and call for change.