Phan represents CNMI in FISU event

Northern Mariana Islands Football Association’s Liz Phan, sixth from left second row, poses for a photo with other participants of the FISU Volunteer Leaders Academy 2017 held in Kazan, Russia early this month. (Contributed Photo)

Northern Mariana Islands Football Association administrative assistant Liz Phan attended the FISU Volunteer Leaders Academy 2017 held early this month at the Volga State Academy of Sport and Tourism in Kazan, Russia.

Phan was one of the more than 100 participants from 174 countries in the seminar that ran from July 2 to 8 and had resource speakers from International Olympic Committee, Fédération Internationale du Sport Universitaire, including its president Oleg Matytsin, and various sports organizations around the world.

“The overall topic of volunteering is actually very new to me. It’s not simply volunteering at an event with little to no training where you just do what you’re told to. There’s actually a whole lot of work and preparation that goes into it. Our lectures and seminars ranged from different topics correlated with volunteering in sports. Although there were different lessons that seemed more interesting than others, I believed that the overall experience presented a very big lesson on communication and understanding, especially within a large and diverse group of people,” Phan said.

IOC’s head of Sport Partnerships and Coordination Jenny Mann shared to Phan and company the importance of volunteering in making an event successful.

“You can sit in an office and write every event need and have the best plan, but none of that matters unless you have the right people on the ground,” Mann was quoted as saying in the FISU Newsletter forwarded to Northern Marianas Sports Association, which nominated Phan to the academy. “When I worked at the World Duathlon Championships, I would tell everyone the day before the event to put down the technical manuals and just know how you deal with the issues that arise, and who you would escalate them to. It’s more about the network of people than the actual run sheets.”

“We need to demonstrate the benefits of volunteering and maximize these for those that contribute. Volunteers are getting training and getting experience and this is great for the organizing committee, but it must also be beneficial for the volunteers as well,” added Mann, emphasizing the need to provide opportunities for development to volunteers, such as the academy.

Besides the roles of volunteers, the academy also discussed anti-doping and the management of global events. After the theoretical and practical sessions, participants were given group project tasks, which they presented to a panel that included Matytsin, sports officials and industry experts. Their tasks focused on how to develop the university sport movement through the International Day of University Sport (IDUS)—a FISU initiative that has been endorsed by UNESCO.

From the pools, five were awarded internships at the Taipei 2017 Summer Universiade, while five more earned a spot in a weeklong business immersion course at the EF Executive Language Institute in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Phan was grateful for the opportunity to take part in the academy and meet a lot of people.

“Besides the seminar itself, I personally thought that being able to interact and get to know so many different kinds of people from different countries was the best thing about this experience. Many of them are very accomplished and have already done a lot of things to help others through the volunteering organizations they work in; some of them are also presidents and general secretaries of these organizations,” the NMIFA staff said.

“As for how the seminar would be of use, I believe organization and preparation are essential and what I learned from this experience was the importance of communication and understanding and how these aspects should be the backbone in driving everything. At NMIFA, our association is slowly trying to build up the sport of soccer on our island and I have seen a progressive change. New and brighter ideas are coming in and they’re not just staying as ideas, they’re actually being put into action,” she added.