Fencing & football, an unprecedented alliance in the face of the challenge of COVID-19

Context

With 14,000 recorded cases (source: WHO figures of 6 August 2020), Senegal is one the 10 African countries worst hit by the COVID-19 pandemic. At the national level, Thiès Province is one of the epicentres of the epidemic and the frequent community transmissions exacerbate the population’s trauma. In addition, the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic, introduced by the Senegalese government, consists of several lockdown measures that endanger children and adolescents’ physical and mental health:

• Sexual abuse and early pregnancies, a menace for the girls
• Locking down the prisons, a risk for underage youngsters’ physical and mental health
• Exposing the talibés, as children in danger

Faced with this situation, the association undertakes to preserve children and the more vulnerable youngsters’ mental and physical health using fencing and football and to help Implement SDGs 3, 4 and 5.

Objectives

• Fencing and football, girls’ vectors of protection against early pregnancy risks and social integration
• Fencing and futsal, vectors of physical and mental balance for underage prisoners
• Fencing and football, a vector of healthy well-being and cognitive development for the talibés
• Building self-esteem through the practice of fencing and social integration with the creation of women’s football teams in the targeted neighbourhoods.

Activities

• Renovating and arranging the association’s reception hall and Thies Prison’s Minor Quarter yard’s multisport platform for the practice of sport
• Organising weekly fencing and football practice sessions with the girls and boys in the targeted neighbourhoods
• Awareness raising campaigns on the risks of undesired early pregnancies and on child care for the targeted neighbourhood’s talibés

Impacts

• 400 Thiès Prison underage inmates have been in total confinement since 23^rd March 2020
• 600 (six hundred) 15- to 19-year-old girls shall be impacted by awareness raising programmes on early marriages and pregnancies
• 1,200 talibés shall benefit from health products and basic foodstuffs

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