The Get Into Rugby North conference has just ended in Dakar after three intense workshop days. From 7th to 9th April it is more than 11 unions of the North Africa and western Africa countries that met. One month earlier, it is the unions of the South African countries that met for the Get Into Rugby South conference. It is thus necessary time to assess these two important moments of Rugby Africa life.
In total, twenty two countries participated (South Africa, Senegal, Kenya, Uganda, Niger, Malawi, Namibia, Lesotho, Mali, Burkina Faso, Zambia, Botswana, Togo, Benin, Algeria, Tunisia, Egypt, Chad, Ivory Coast, Burundi, Zimbabwe, Nigeria), Swaziland and Mauritiusdeclined the invitation, Ghana didn’t supplied the wanted information so was not able to be invited, Rwanda did not obtain a visa for its representative.
These conferences which came from more or less long experiment periods of the project had for objectives, at first to assess activities of some and others, to see what works and what still raises problem, to clarify certain aspects of the project (monthly reports, help from World Rugby/Rugby Africa) to work on the “stay” phase of this project, which will allow to direct a maximum of these new players to clubs, to work on, how approach the rugby with contact in complete physical and psychological safety, on new programs, Rugby Africa challenge, “I also play referee”. As a supplement to these diverse themes, every union had an individual interview with one of the management members to land in a more precise way, the perspectives of work, cooperation.
It should be noted that the South African Rugby Union and the Senegalese Union brought an excellent support to Rugby Africa. They didn’t spareany effort to make these two meetings perfect success. Thanks to Oregan Hoskins for SARU, to Guédel Ndiaye for FSR and to their respective teams.
These two conferences were supervised by, for the South, Audrey de Mallman, Lola Barthès, Erick Situma from Rugby Africa, Jean-Luc Barthès from World Rugby ; for the North, Lola Barthès, Charles Yapo and Mohamed Dermouni from Rugby Africa, Jean-Luc Barthès from World Rugby.
GIR Africa’s figures for 2014 :
29 registered unions
3800 executives trained by Regional Developments Officers
New players, 47000 boys, 25300 girls
220 places of practices
523 events (trainings, tournaments)
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