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The first time Perina Lokure Nakang began to run for sport, she ran 9 miles (14 kilometers) along the road near her refugee camp in northwestern Kenya.
Now, the 21-year-old South Sudanese runner is competing in the Paris Olympics, among many of the 37 athletes on the Olympic refugee team who are pushing to see more refugees like her able to compete in the Games.
“I told myself if I continue running this, it is going to change my life,” she said. “In the Olympics, everyone is looking to me to represent them.”
They are getting support from former refugee Olympians and U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi, who told The Associated Press in an interview Sunday that the team is “a symbol of inclusion, of equality, of achievement for a large community around the world of refugees and displaced people."
The Olympic refugee team was born at the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, a collaboration between the International Olympic Committee and UNHCR, with just 10 athletes from four different countries.
Now, it has expanded to dozens of athletes that have fled 11 countries — ranging from Cuba to Afghanistan and South Sudan like Nakang, who escaped war when she was 7.
The refugee team has spurred hope by many to recover their dreams that were lost when they left their lives behind to start from scratch in a new country. These athletes have taken center stage in the Paris Olympics, a competition that has underscored themes like diversity and inclusion at a time of historic global migration.
In Friday’s opening ceremonies, Grandi was honored with the Olympic laurel for his support of the Olympic refugee team and “his dedication to support refugees recognizing the power of sport.”
“It is a moment in which people that have often lost everything can gain back dignity, identity and give back to the communities hosting them,” Grandi told the AP. “And they’re not the objects of charity in a way, but are actors and the active participants in their communities.”
The Olympics are set during a tense time in France: The country’s far-right party has made political gains in recent elections while focusing on anti-immigration policies.
French and local authorities in Paris also have come under fire for breaking up homeless camps largely made up of migrants from African countries once colonized by the French, including Burkina Faso, Guinea, Ivory Coast and Senegal.
Migrants have been loaded up on buses and taken out of the city in an effort by authorities to clean up the streets during the Olympics.
“We understand the city needs to manage itself,” Grandi said. But especially with asylum-seekers, finding “solutions that are humane is very important. And this is a message that goes far beyond the Olympics. This is a message that goes far beyond the French government.”
Still, many current and former refugee athletes like Yiech Pur Biel see the platform offered by the Olympics as crucial in a larger push to humanize refugees and people fleeing their homes as nations around the world clamp down on access to asylum.
Another South Sudanese runner, the 29-year-old Biel was among the first 10 athletes to compete on the Olympic refugee team in 2016. Now living in Nebraska and working with UNHCR, Biel said he hopes the team can “bring back the dream of refugees” and “showing what refugees can do.”
With growing representation of refugees in the Olympics, he said he hopes to reduce the need for there to be a refugee team at the Games.
“The team will grow. We don’t want to see (refugee populations) growing, but no one can control what is happening in the world,” Biel said. “Our end goal is to have people and end (the need) for a refugee team.”
