Paris 2024 supports the campaign WeThe15
An outstanding movement for equality, led by the International Paralympic Committee (IPC), the WeThe15 campaign is first and foremost a symbol of the fight against the discrimination facing people with disabilities, while helping build an inclusive society. There are around 1.2 billion people worldwide with physical or mental disabilities. They represent 15% of the global population. WeThe15 aims to turn the spotlight on the 1.2 billion human beings who continue to be underrepresented today.
Uniting movement
Everyone has a role to play as part of this new drive for equality! With WeThe15, many different countries, non-profits and businesses around the world are joining forces to tackle discrimination against people with physical or mental disabilities.
Paris 2024 supports the WeThe15 movement, in line with its firm belief that sport is a valuable driving force for inclusion and brings people from diverse backgrounds together by continuously creating social connections and breaking down barriers between individuals. Paris 2024 wants to promote the values of the Paralympic Games by shining a spotlight on the performances by Paralympic athletes, and all our competition and celebration venues will be accessible for people with disabilities.
Every year, we organise the Olympic and Paralympic Week in schools, and 80% of the projects in 2021 focused on raising schoolchildren’s awareness about disability and introducing them to parasports. The entire sporting movement and Paris 2024’s public and private stakeholders are committed to ensuring that the Games help boost universal accessibility, inclusion, professional integration and participation in sport among people with disabilities. As our Japanese counterparts prepare to hand over the baton, we are ready to turn our ambition into a reality and prove that sport can change lives, and the WeThe15 campaign is fully aligned with this.
WeThe15 goals
WeThe15 is looking to change perspectives on disabilities and make lasting changes to people’s mindsets in order to make society more accessible by:
- Positioning people with disabilities at the heart of diversity and inclusion matters,
- Creating programmes to empower greater inclusion for people with disabilities within society,
- Ensuring visibility and representation for people with disabilities,
- Breaking down the systemic barriers that prevent individuals from fulfilling their potential and being active members of our society.
A real call for change and the creation of new initiatives benefiting the whole of society!
To launch the WeThe15 campaign, and promote this movement worldwide, 115 monuments around the world went purple, adopting the international colour for disability: from Tokyo’s Skytree to the Colosseum in Rome, Niagara Falls, Jerusalem’s Walls, the Elysée Palace, Paris City Hall… and even Seine-Saint-Denis, where Pulse, our Paris 2024 headquarters, has embraced the movement’s colour.
Ensuring a global spotlight less than three years before Paris 2024, and the first ever summer Paralympic Games organized in France !