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!

Cameroon : A successful first personal hygiene campaign!

In November 2017, we launch our first personal hygiene campaign. The objective was to teach good practices and to reinforce, in the minds of children and adults, the necessity to wash their body and teeth every day, but also the importance to wash their hands regularly with soap and by adopting the right technique.
    

Hand washing is a very simple but fundamental gesture to eliminate bacteria. It’s a reflex to have that can save lives. In fact, 80% of common infectious diseases, such as cold or flu, are transmitted by the hands. And 20 seconds is the optimal duration of an effective hand washing.

The Hilton Hotel in Yaoundé offered us soaps for our personal hygiene campaign and we are very grateful to them. This is the second time in a year that the Hilton Hotel gives us soaps which are very useful to the mothers of the children of our centers.

In addition to soaps, we received a donation of toothpastes and toothbrushes by Dr. Roshan from Georgetown Dentistry in Washington DC. They were offered to the children of the Jardin d’Eden Center.

Thank you to our generous donors for making this hygiene campaign possible!

Event : Dubaï 7’s, SBA Pirates

Our brave SBA Pirates reached the final at the Dubai 7’s veteran tournament. Two iconic ex-rugby players were featured on the SBA team along with Serge: Yann Delaigue and Francis Ntamack. Despite a tough match against our English friends: Iain Balshaw, Simon Shaw and Olly Barkley, we are proud of our Pirates who wore the colours of our association!

Thanks to the support of their sponsors, 850€ were donated to the SBA. A huge thank you to the Pirates and their sponsors for their engagement and motivation. Bravo and thank you!

Cyril Mattera, one of our Pirates who represented the association, confessed: “Lots of emotions still 72 hours later and already the desire to restart this tournament! A 2017 tournament for the books! Meeting these extraordinary men who have such incredible values! Thank you to all the people who helped our team. Thank you to all the players! Long live rugby! MATOS”

 

Translation by Jean Verdon

Partnership : Recycled rugby balls project with Serge Blanco and Rugby Corner

In 2017, Serge Blanco, who wanted to support the association, donated 73 new Rugby World Cup and Cocotte rugby balls. This donation was used to create a new collection of pencil cases, wallets, and bags. This project’s success keeps growing and is surpassing our expectations and those of Lionel who is still involved 200% with the SBA!

In 2017 over 1,200 rugby balls were recycled thanks to your donations! You: the rugby clubs, the “Kenos” contacts, and the persons willing to transport and send balls from the 4 corners of France.  Thanks to your support and donations this project has given the association 11,000€, which is being used to finance our rugby coaches as well as the insurance coverage for our players.

 

In addition, the Ile de France committee has associated itself with the rugby section of Diderot’s high school in Massy to support our association. Therefore, we can predict more and more visibility of the recycled rugby balls project thanks to our partnership with Rugby Corner  : https://rugby-corner.com/fr/96_sba-serge-betsen-academy where you can buy them online. Loads of pencil cases, wallets, and travel bags are on their way!

Translation by Jean Verdon

Cameroon : Vaccination campaigns

In addition to the medical visits for all our rugby players, insured thanks to the SBA (51 today), we noticed several players were not vaccinated against tetanus. We have decided to set up a tetanus vaccination campaign with the help of two doctors, Elisabeth our president and a friend of her.

The first vaccine injections took place in June. As required for the tetanus vaccination, the second injection has been done in September for the 12 attending players. Another session will be organised soon for the absentees.

A nice operation in a lovely place !

Event : Ealing Half Marathon, UK, Sept. 2017

On the 23rd of  September, SBA team SBA ran the Ealing Half Marathon.

Two years ago they raised nearly £4,000 for the charity and it made a life changing improvment for many children in Cameroun.

This year, a new team has decided to take up the challenge again and beat the record. They fixed their fundraising target at £5,000 (6,578$).

They trained as hard as professionnal runners…. Have a look here!

The dream team: Bertie Kloetgen; Laurent Leslé; Sebastien Gerinet; Philipe Allard; Emmanuel Pringalle; Arnaud Leclerc; Roger Nash; Gareth Down; Édouard Sénéchal; Olivier Morato has won its challenge.

They are all finishers and they managed to collect around £9,000 (11,840$) !

A big thank you to them, the new heroas of the SBA!

Cameroon: Back to school with DHL and Panafrica

The children are back in school and in our SBA centres.

Thanks to our partners, DHL and Panafrica, we have received generous donations that are helping our children with education and rugby supplies.

This year, our partner Panafrica renew its confidence and will help us to support the education pole of the SBA (educational material, teacher expenses, complement of school supplies …).

DHL kindly offered for the first year a bunch of school supplies, medicinal products and materials for our Rugbymen.

A huge thanks for their support, in a long term perspective.

 Au travail Repas SAM_2615 IMG_20170908_183331 IMG_20170908_182348 IMG-20170831-WA0058IMG-20170831-WA0049  IMG-20170831-WA0043 IMG-20170831-WA0039

USA: News from Kiki

Do you remember Kiki?

We helped her in her adventure for the Las Vegas Rugby 7s a few months ago. Today she plays in the AON Uni 7s that are being supported by the Australian rugby team and all the unis. This is the link where they stream all the tourneys and have tons of publicity and information.

You will see that there are already a lot of references to “American import Kiki Morgan” and how well she’s doing! She already scored 4 tries! Come on Kiki!

Here is her story:

“Like most people, I started rugby in college. The very first practice I went to I was mind blown.That night I was introduced to a sport that allowed women to be physical yet graceful, reckless but also calculated. I spent the next four years playing rugby in college and I was exposed to amazing people and got to travel to amazing places in and out of the country. After four years of playing, I thought I knew what the sport was about, I thought I knew the ins and out of the chess like gameplay, but one summer in DC proved me wrong. With the help of Toshi and Joanne I learned rugby is not something you can master in a few years, it’s a lifelong journey of learning. Knowing that, I wanted to expose myself to rugby outside of the US as a way to grow my skills and expand my knowledge. Luckily enough, I was invited by the University of Tasmania to compete with their team in the AON Uni 7s Series. It’s a four week women’s series with players of high caliber. From olympic gold medalists and international World Cup players to college students who have been playing their whole lives. Each week, my team and I will be traveling to different areas of Australia, playing the other teams in the series. 

For the next 2 months, I will be in rugby heaven. Training, growing, learning and exploring. In the last few years since I started playing, the women’s game has grown so much in terms of exposure and opportunities. And I’m excited to be a part of this series, knowing that it will only help to improve the women’s international competition even more.” – Kiki Morgan

 

Media: Vox Africa report (full version)

Thanks to Vox Africa, you may have seen the inauguration of the centre “L’Eau Claire” after we came back from Cameroon.

We are very happy to invite to watch on the same channel a complete record of our actions, together with a retrospective about Serge Betsen.

Have a good viewing !

Cameroon: L’eau Claire in operation

Since the inauguration in April 2017, the new centre has been very busy.

 

Especially since Thursdays have been added to the program. This extra day is dedicated to children who need more tutoring and those preparing for exams.

The new centre is closer and more accessible by the road. It is already well known by the people, as much as the dispensary, which receives more and more patients each week.

 

Regular and “Vacationer” children are numerous at the moment.

 

During holidays, activities are generally more physical (gardening) and manual (artisanal creation). The children have already been preparing the soil of the garden since the inauguration. They are numerous to be involved in this activity. We are impatiently expecting the first crops !

 

 

Last novelty this summer: François du Jardin Eden came to organise a French Theatre workshop.