***2 winners to represent Nigeria in Competition in France
By Harry Awurumibe, Editor, Abuja Bureau
The prime mover of Fame Foundation, Arabirin Aderonke Ogunleye-Bello has posited that her pet project, National Breakdance Championship is her own way of using sports as a tool for youth empowerment.
This is even as she has revealed that Breakdance Championship the Foundation outfit is organising in conjunction with Embassy of French in Nigeria, is not a way of preparing athletes for the Olympic Games Paris 2023.
According to her, the Foundation is organizing National Breakdance Chmapionship[to empower the youth with two overall winners who will represent Nigeria at an International Break Dance competition in France later in the year.
Speaking to journalists on Saturday at the National Breakdance Championship Abuja Qualifiers held at Lycèe Français Marcel Pagnol d’Abuja, Kaura in AMAC, Federal Capital Territory (FCT), said the competition could not have come at a better time than now that Break Dance is used as a tool to lift youths from deprivation and rescue them from social vices.
“We are happy to organise this qualifiers of the National Break Dance Championship. We have been to Kaduna, we have been to Kano, we have been to Port Harcourt and this is the fourth state which is the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja.
“In two weeks time we will be in Lagos for the final qualifier and in November there will be the overall qualifier where we will chose two winners that will represent Nigeria at an International Break Dance Championship in Paris.
“So what we are doing here today is a qualifier abd and the idea is this, Break Dance is a new sports and for the first time-ever, of course, Paris 2024 next year Olympics, Break Dance is going to feature in Paris.
“That is why we are here, first of all, to create awareness about the extent of Break Dance as a Sports. And secondly, to also use it under the initiative of Fame Foundation, to use it as a tool to empower women and girls and we are using Break Dance this year of Olympics to empower the youths.
“As you can see these are the youths that we encountered in different states in campaigning against drugs, thuggery and saying no to rape and all sorts of social vices”.
The event which aims to empower the youth through sports under the Play it Dream it Initiative, strengthening the inclusion of young people and vulnerable people through sport, is also meant to inspire and teach valuable life skills to young people- particularly those that are consistently underserved, excluded, or economically disadvantaged.
Six dancers qualified to join the 16 others for the Lagos leg just as the competition had produced qualifiers from Kaduna, Kano, and Portharcourt centers respectively while all the qualifier will compete at the grand finale in Lagos in November 2023.
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Meanwhile, the Ambassador of French Embassy in Nigeria, Emmanuelle Blatmann said young people especially the deprived could found career path in Break Dance.
Said she: “We feel that this is the first time-ever Break Dance will be an Olympic Game and Paris 2024 is happy to host the global multi sports event.
Speaking further on why the embassy supported the organisers of the Championship, Fame Foundation, Ambassador Blatmann said: “The idea is to work towards social inclusion through sports.
“As you know for the first time in history, Break Dance is going to be an Olympic discipline at Paris 2024 Olympic and Para-Olympic Games next year.
“So we thought it will be a great idea to promote Break Dance here in Nigeria where we know that there are so much talents and dance and sports are really at the heart of culture of Nigerian people.
“So we thought it will be a good idea to support this project and of course to prepare Nigerian athletes for the sports next year through this zonal and national competitions.
“And through sports and dance there are many values we managed to promote, you know, together with our partners as sisters, respecting each other, supporting one another, there is brotherhood and so on.
“Yeah, we are very excited that we are able to support this project”.
Asked if there are other initiatives the Embassy of French supports in Nigeria, the Ambassador said: “Oh yes, we do, we do alot here and as I said earlier, with all the talents that are thriving in Nigeria, it is quite easy to find a project to support especially in sports.
“Your colleague was mentioning women’s empowerment, so we have several projects that we have supported and we have more than 25 projects that we have supported in the last three or four years for women such as women’s right, women’s empowerment, women’s emancipation, etc.
“But we are also working in so many sectors with the youths, you know, to help and to help Nigerian ecosystem in several ways such as in key sports like gaming, video game or industrial culture and creative industry like cinemas, video game, animation and for the first time Nigerian gamers and video game and gamers were in Paris last year and Nigeria was the Guest of Honoir and Nigeria had a big pavilion.
“And this time we are going to contribute to the Lagos Films Week and we also have Nigerian young talents go to the festival of animation in France and they actually won several awards and prizes”.
On her impression about the National Break Dance which her embassy is sponsoring, she said there are alot young people participating in the other cities before Abuja leg, adding that dancing is not new in Nigeria.
Said she: “You know, one in five Nigerian consider themselves to be dancers. We have also already supported Nigerian companies in Kaduna, Lagos, etc.
Talking about a dancer, Ochayi from Kaduna among others are participating and we are very proud to be part of it”.
