The Nigeria Olympic Committee (NOC) recently held its youth empowerment initiative at the Amuwo Odofin Olympafric Centre. The event, named "O' Yes Youth Empowerment," saw the participation of no fewer than 600 youths from the Lagos area.
The attendees included 500 boys and 100 girls aged between 10 and 15 years. They engaged in various educational sports, including soccer, volleyball, egg races, sack races, dance competitions, and art.
The aim of the educational sports was to instill respect, friendship, tolerance, and excellence in the children.
The rules of the games were primarily developed by the participants themselves, as there were no provisions for referees and technical officials. Despite this, they successfully managed and controlled all the events on their own.
Earlier, the Senegalese Programme Manager of the Olympafric Foundation, Ms. Coumba Marieme, visited Nigeria to monitor the progress of the project and offer technical support. She conducted a pre-event seminar with coaches and some team members.
“The workshop is a buildup of the O' Yes programme, which Nigeria's Ibrahim Malik, the NOC project manager, has been running over the past few months,” she explained.
According to Malik, the O' YES programme is a youth empowerment initiative that has been active for the past eight months. “In this programme, we conduct workshops on sustainability and inclusion,” he noted.
Coumba added, “It is still the same OlympAfric programme aimed at achieving the same goals. Olympafrica programmes are not only Nigerian initiatives; we have been holding the O' Yes event at all 28 Olympafrica Centres in Africa this year.”
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