An earnest call to empower the world's youth

The 2016 Olympic Games has already shattered records, but even before the first competition began, the Games made history by giving athletes who have no country to call home a place on the starting line.

I expressed my appreciation to International Olympic Committee President Thomas Bach for his compassionate leadership in forming the first-ever Refugee Olympic Team, whose members I had the privilege of meeting. Their strength in surviving the horror of displacement and the pain of loss was remarkable. Although nothing can change the past, these athletes are proving that even the most impossible odds can be beaten. Whether or not they earn the chance to stand on the podium, they are already towering winners.

I saw in these young refugees the passion and promise possessed by millions of youth in our world. At this time of rampant poverty, hateful discrimination, rising violent extremism, environmental degradation and other global threats, we must look to those hardest hit, especially young people, for solutions.