Dakar 2026’s commitment to culture and education was on full display in Lausanne when the team hosted their own stand at the museum, a first for Olympic Week. The team invited young visitors to take part in a range of fun and educational activities related to Senegalese culture and sport, including music and dance sessions, crossword puzzles, blind obstacle courses and games that encouraged children aged 6–15 to help each other. The same activities are part of the new toolkit rolled out to Olympafrica centres.
Among those travelling to the Olympic Museum was Awa Ndao, a sports coach, social worker and OVEP implementer from Tamba in Senegal. Along with her Dakar 2026 colleagues, Amadou Sylla Sarr Diaw and Aichatou Diop, who also travelled to Lausanne, Awa has been involved with the OVEP programme since the first train-the-trainer workshops in Dakar, working on OVEP’s growth across Senegal.
Awa works on sport-related programmes with young people with intellectual disabilities in Dakar – because, as she puts it, “Sport is a vehicle for education, development and integration… [and] through OVEP, through sport, we can win this battle of inclusion.”
Interviewed during Olympic Week, Amadou explained what brought him all the way from Dakar to Lausanne: “What truly drives me is making a real difference,” he said. “Seeing children smile and hearing their positive feedback is the most beautiful reward.”
