VCU news

By Greg Burton
Center for Sport Leadership

Carrie LeCrom, Ph.D., has traveled the world using sport as a vehicle to create social change in communities. The pandemic brought her work to a halt, but after almost four years, the executive director of Virginia Commonwealth University’s Center for Sport Leadership is making up for lost time with two sports diplomacy missions this summer in Rwanda, Ghana and Togo.

“We have this renewed energy and excitement to promote the power of sport around the world,” said LeCrom, who graduated from the center in 2003 and became its leader in 2015.

ENVEST – Empowering New Voices through Education and Sport Training – is a series of diplomacy missions aimed at creating social change through sport. Led by the center, the two-way cultural exchanges are funded by grants from the U.S. State Department’s Bureau of Education and Cultural Affairs, through the ECA’s Sports Diplomacy Division.

The State Department awards funding regionally, and Sub-Saharan Africa was quickly identified as an area of interest due in part to LeCrom’s previous work on the continent and having knowledge of the culture — she spent a year living there as a Fulbright Scholar.

“There’s so much work to be done everywhere, but we just felt a bit of a special calling there,” LeCrom said.

In early August, her team is on a two-week trip to Ghana and Togo, where the focus is peace-building. “We use soccer and other sports to teach conflict resolution strategies, social-emotional learning and respect for diversity,” LeCrom said. “We want to empower young people to make good decisions, to practice self-expression and highlight authenticity.”

In June, she led a delegation to Rwanda with a focus on empowering local leaders.“We put a lot of thought into how we can create a sustainable model. We believe in a collaborative approach, which blends our programming and expertise with the incredible work already being done in these countries,” LeCrom said.

“Our impact with every subsequent program is stronger because I think we’ve changed our focus from coming in as the teachers and experts to co-creators of content and information, and learners,” she added. “And I think it has created a very impactful way to use the privilege we bring there.”

Starting in 2007, the CSL has been awarded more than $3 million in grants to coordinate programming in countries including China, Ethiopia, India, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, South Africa, Sri Lanka, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan. LeCrom’s global work has inspired her graduate students to embrace sport-for-social change as a vocation. She fostered that interest by including more alumni in the delegations that travel abroad.

“We have four CSL alums and one current student with us in Ghana and Togo, and we had others in Rwanda,” LeCrom said. “We believe in empowering our students and alumni with opportunities, and I am so grateful they could be part of this mission.”

This fall, the program’s partners in Rwanda, Ghana and Togo will visit the United States for the second part of this cultural exchange.

“We can’t wait to host them and show our friends the wonderful community and spirit we have here at VCU,” LeCrom said.