Reebok has announced that community organizer, activist and social entrepreneur Dieter Cantu has been named the recipient of the 2022 Reebok Human Rights Award. The program, which highlights individuals doing impactful work that promotes human rights and fights injustice, originally ran from 1988 to 2007 and was reinstated in 2021. For the first time this year, the program honored activists in the world of sports and athletics.
With a shift to the intersection of human rights and sport, Reebok has partnered with Sports Illustrated’s Sportsperson of the Year Awards to celebrate Cantu, alongside some of the world’s most decorated athletes, at an award ceremony in San Francisco on Dec. 8. The work of Texas-based Cantu is focused on the U.S. juvenile justice reform and police accountability, with the objective to help advance the mental health and physical wellness of young people. Cantu works to establish library spaces, entertainment areas and sports training programs at juvenile facilities and halfway houses. He also assists young people as they transition back into society. As a youth, Cantu was sentenced to serve ten years in juvenile detention. Through his challenges, he developed his passion for helping incarcerated youth and to promote education and sports as a tool to keep young people out of the prison system. As the recipient of the 2022 Reebok Human Rights Award, he will receive $50,000 to support his philanthropic work as well as mentorship from Reebok and its involved partners, including Sports Illustrated, Alabama State University, the American Civil Liberties Union and RISE.
