Cameroon : Laurent’s arrival

You may have noticed Laurent in a few of our photos. A close friend to Odile’s from Washingon DC, Laurent moved to Cameroon for professional reasons in 2017. He is a huge fan of rugby so he was eager to assist the SBA on site.

He gave rugby tips to Abaa, one of our coach. Wishing to get more involved he assisted Elisabeth on all sort of projects.  He has become our SBA Cameroon Treasurer and will be our main contact with local sponsors.

Here are some words from Laurent on his motivation to help the SBA.

“For a long time sport was the best expression of sport – solidarity, social diversity, complementarity and surpassing oneself – it is a collective combat sport that lends itself to all these values and adds to all elements that make up a team with their differences A fashionable competition of individualism, which is contrary to the nature and spirit of rugby and the SBA, that’s why I found within the SBA a desire for sharing, equity and the SBA allows me to be able to exercise in the medical and sports with the sole objective of the development of children and their being a chance, in a country where it is not easy to be a child. “

Here is a summary of his career:
Second division rugby player in Auxerre since he was 5 years old.
At the age of 22, he obtains the first-level national Rugby instructor’s certificate and becomes educator in the rugby club of Auxerre.
He has been responsible of the departmental rugby of Yonne and Bourgogne from 1988 to 1998, responsible for the training of  1st and 2nd degree federal educators of Bourgogne before taking charge of the supervision of the departmental teams of the Yonne and  of the minimal, feminine and junior teams of Bourgogne.
He also participated in the preparation for the 1st Women’s Cup in Cardiff in 1991.
In 1998, he came to Paris where he was a player then the coach at the ACBB. He became in 1999  manager of the ACBB till 2001.
In 2001, he went to Corsica, where he will make a season in Bastia in 2nd division, then 2 seasons in Ajaccio as a coach and player between 2002 and 2004.
From 2003 to 2005 he became educator of the rugby school, then created a rugby club focused on the discovery of rugby and more specifically Beach rugby. He was also a federal referee in Corsica and in PACA.
In 2014 he takes care of the rugby initiation in a children’s school in Washington.

All this after attending Rank Xerox Business School, and graduating as a Resuscitation Nurse.

Thank you Laurent!