Paris 2024, the Organizing Committee of the Olympic Games and the French Development Agency (AFD) support 26 projects by high-level athletes, including 16 from Africa, over a period of 8 months. The goal: to develop projects with a strong social and / or environmental impact.
Concentrated, in streetwear, personalities develop successive entrepreneurial projects at Powerpoint. But here it is not a common business incubator program. All project managers are or have been high-level athletes. “It’s about concretizing this belief that athletes are masters of their sport but that they can also give very positive things to society,” explains Olympe Chabason from the Paris 2024 team. Develop the skills of “skilled entrepreneurs”, she assures us.
For eight months, these 26 personalities are trained to create a business plan, raise money, optimize communication about their project. “Some athletes were at the beginning of the idea of a project, others were already quite advanced,” says Olympe Chabason, the program therefore adapts to everyone’s needs. The athletes’ projects are different, related to sports or not. Nevertheless, everyone has a common desire to have a strong social and / or environmental impact.
Aby Gaye: basketball and self-esteem
Aby Gaye is French of Senegalese origin. This 26-year-old young woman has been a professional basketball player since 2013. If high-level sports occupy a large part of her time, she also devotes herself to her association Terang’Aby. In 2007, she returned to Senegal and was shocked by the depigmentation site. “Especially how much the young people are already fond of this type of training,” explains Aby Gaye. And then I wondered how on my level I could commit to changing mentalities a bit and changing how black skin looks on the continent. “
Since 2018, she has organized basketball camps for young girls during which various professionals (psychologists, dermatologists, midwives, businesswomen, female leaders) deal with various themes of self-confidence and self-esteem. Aby Gaye notes that Senegalese teenage girls are confronted with imported beauty dictations, models they encounter daily. “The idea for us is to counteract all this a little bit and to say to these young girls,” you are beautiful as you are “” value yourself through your identity “”, the player specifies.
She wants to use this program to build a social business model to continue the camps for free but offer educational content online for a fee. Various content aimed at individuals, but also at institutions, schools or non-governmental organizations. The goal for Aby Gaye: “to make all the things that you do not necessarily learn in school, but that are essential in life” available.
Hortense Diedhiou: securing school luggage for athletes
Hortense Diedhiou was born in southern Senegal, in Casamance. She is proud of her Diola origins and the traditional wrestling she practiced there as a child. But uncomfortable with the nudity introduced by this practice and after seeing a Japanese judokat, she starts judo. Hortense Diedhiou is a relatively small, very energetic woman, four times African champion. It is without make-up that she says: “I have a very small luggage. It was very difficult for me to find a job, to express myself. When you win a medal, you want to express yourself correctly, when you take a plan, you have to fill in forms … ”
It is because of her experience that Hortense Diedhiou has decided to build a center in Senegal dedicated to judo that will enable athletes to take a school course at the same time. “I would like all young people who want to play sports at a high level to know how to read and know how to write,” she insists. The judiciary insists on the need to have a minimum school background, especially to be able to defend their interests, to be able to read a contract for example.
“And what do we do after the career?” She says. Many are not prepared ”. Many retired professional athletes from the continent end up in oblivion and insecurity, she emphasizes. “It really hurts for an athlete who has made a lot of sacrifices for his nation to find himself zero, without a job. It is very difficult, she says. Therefore, according to her, is the need to have a “small school luggage” to find a professional activity after sports.
The judiciary has already built part of its center. Through this program, she hopes to be able to complete her project and open before the 2024 Olympics and, above all, to be able to welcome athletes for the preparations for the Youth Olympic Games planned for Dakar 2026.
Roger Amegbeto: a pool for everyone
Roger Amegbeto is a young Togolese man who participated in the Olympic Games and the World Championships in Shanghai. His father worked in a hotel, and it was when he saw foreigners swimming that he turned to this unusual activity in Togo, as in many countries on the continent. For many, water is still the vector of many fears. “The ancients were culturally afraid of water. Water is considered to be somewhat related to spirits, mermaids and the like. Families did not want the children to go into the water, he says.
More down to earth, there is currently no public pool in Togo. “I was sent on deportation because there was no adequate structure,” he adds. The only pools in the country are private and therefore very inaccessible to Togolese. A project for a water center therefore seemed relevant to him. “For me, it is important to be able to transfer in my country what I have been able to acquire since 2012 in France and to pass on this experience to the young athletes in my country,” he insists.
He hopes that thanks to this infrastructure, many will be able to learn to swim and benefit from the many activities that are connected to water. He also hopes to train lifeguards in this future complex that will be able to transfer this knowledge but also protect the coast which today remains unattended for swimmers. Roger Amegbeto has bought land for his complex and much remains to be done. He also hopes that his project will be able to see the light of day in 2024.
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