Held during the Dakar en Jeux 2025 festival, the Impact Spark event, designed to instil better health practices in younger generations, brought together 800 people around the themes of sport, health, well-being, and Olympic values.
In addition to music, fashion, and sporting competitions, the Dakar en Jeux festival serves as an opportunity to promote Olympic values. Another key objective of the event is to raise public awareness about health and well-being issues through the educational project Impact Spark.
Launched during the previous edition of Dakar en Jeux in 2024, this initiative is led by health professionals from both Switzerland and Senegal. The programme includes educational workshops, sporting activities, and preventive sessions run by doctors, sports instructors, and community leaders.
The programme primarily targets young Senegalese people, enabling them to adopt new practices aimed at improving their general well-being and health.
Raising awareness among the younger generation
This year, introductory sessions in various sports disciplines, such as taekwondo, 3x3 basketball, breakdancing, and volleyball, were offered. These sessions encouraged physical activity and team spirit among participants, while highlighting the role of sport in maintaining good health, fostering social cohesion, and promoting Olympic values.
Other activities covering topics such as oral health, addiction prevention, malaria, mental health, social cohesion, and personal intimacy were also organised, attracting 800 attendees, including young people aged between 14 and 18.
On the road to the 2026 Youth Olympic Games in Dakar
In addition to raising awareness about best practices for individual well-being, participants in these workshops gained skills that they could measure through the BOCS – the Olympic Skills Competency Certificate.
The latest edition of the Dakar en Jeux festival took place from 4 to 9 November. This edition is held less than a year before the Dakar 2026 Youth Olympic Games (YOG), scheduled to take place from 31 October to 13 November 2026. The event will bring together 2,700 of the world’s best young athletes, aged 17 and under, and will be hosted across three cities in Senegal: Dakar, Diamniadio, and Saly.
