The 3rd edition of the Hope and Dreams Sports Festival in Jordan concluded on Saturday, 3 May, having enabled refugee athletes to showcase their talents and inspiring stories during the biggest edition to date.

For the first time, handball has been present in the event, as the 2025 edition of the Hope and Dreams Sports Festival brought together nearly 1,250 participants throughout the festival, with more sports involved and more refugee athletes than ever before.

In addition to taekwondo, basketball, baseball5, and badminton, which featured on last year’s programme, the 2025 Hope and Dreams Sports Festival also featured handball for the first time.

Established by World Taekwondo and the Taekwondo Humanitarian Foundation (THF), the first Hope and Dreams Taekwondo Championships was held in 2022 and only featured Taekwondo before it evolved into the Hope and Dreams Sports Festival. Since the inaugural edition in 2023, hundreds of refugee athletes have taken part and benefited from the power of sport.  

“The Hope and Dreams Sports Festival has become one of the most important events of the year for World Taekwondo and THF, and we are proud that it has grown into an acclaimed multi-sport festival which inspires refugees and young people. We are grateful for the support of our partners in expanding this year’s edition to include six sports, which will further strengthen the support of the global sporting community for displaced people,” said Chungwon Choue, World Taekwondo President and THF Chairman.

The Festival featured demonstrations of each sport at the Azraq and Za’atari Refugee Camps on April 30, followed by the competitions which took place at Amman Sports City on 2 and 3 May.

Jordan have been using sport to integrate refugees for more than a decade, as the European Council stated that “the positive values of sport as a tool for promoting human rights, encouraging peace and fostering international understanding in a spirit of mutual respect between people can be seen to play an important role for helping both host societies and new arrivals to come together, bringing people together to overcome differences”.

The handball project in Jordan was created in 2021, by long time handball expert and IHF Lecturer, Wolfgang Lowak. The project begun in collaboration with the Jordan Handball Federation and the Jordan Olympic Committee and its focus is on the development of a nationwide infrastructre of handball in the country.

According to preliminary results, children which started playing handball appreciated that due to the programme, they were able to learn new skills and helped them gain self-confidence.

Photo credit: World Taekwondo