Poems of hope and resilience to see out 2022
‘You, as a community, have overcome immense challenges. And together, you are healing and teaching the world as you go.”
Our Patron, The Duke of Sussex spoken last year at the Invictus Games The Hague 2020, highlight how our international community is not only focused on recovery through sport, but also on showing the world what it means to be resilient.
2022 was a year in which we overcame the adversity of a global pandemic as the twice-delayed Invictus Games The Hague 2020 finally took place; planned travel for international Invictus Endeavours was able to go ahead; and the community came together to recover together, in person, thanks to opportunities provided by the online platform, We Are Invictus.
Poems were read by:
Abbie Kasparis, UK, Invictus Games Sydney 2018; Captain Alexander Tapasco, Colombia; Ashley Winter, UK; Edward Mcmahon, UK, Invictus Games Sydney 2018; Julie Grandmaison, Canada, Invictus Games Sydney 2018; Fiona Cranswick, UK, Invictus Games Orlando 2016; Garth Wigle, Canada; Jamie Hull, UK, Invictus Games London 2014; Scott Robertson, UK; Stephanie Shaw, UK; Suzanne Burnhauser, USA; Tim Seeley, UK; Tony Benfer, Australia, Invictus Games London 2014 and Orlando 2016; Corp. Victor Vera, Colombia; Willie Plowman, UK; Gosa Dazzi, Nigeria, and Effiom Antigha, Nigeria.
And the chosen poems were excerpts from:
Speech to the Young, Gwendolyn Brooks
“To Katya, Aged 7," in a Bomb Shelter in Kyiv, by Ben Okra
If, Rudyard Kipling
Keep Going, Edgar Guest
And we ended with the poem from which the Foundation is named, Invictus by William Henley.