By Atia Azohnwi
A team of dedicated young Cameroonians grouped under the World Spark Your Talents have taken One of Africa’s most popular sports, known affectionately as ‘dodging’ to the next level. Dodging has been made digital and plans are far afoot to professionalise and brand the sport.
Initiators of the digital platform have already begun lobbying to ensure the game is given a place in local, national and international competitions across Africa and the World. Dodging is an African indigenous sport from time immemorial.
It is said to be very popular in regions like Central and West Africa with a peculiar case of Cameroon where it is often played by girls in schools and in the local communities. Boys however often feature in the sport but are not dominant.
“Over the years, the sport, though full of energy, has been relegated and abandoned,” a team of young Information Technology, IT experts, headed by King David Fontawah Tse, said in a statement.
Dodging Sports $ Games (DSG), they say, is an organisation that is aimed at rebranding and presenting this sport to the present generation.
“From random sampling, the energy involved coupled with the excitement generated, we believe it should be an inclusive sport. Given the fact that a lot of physical display of tactics, strength and smartness can be employed, we encourage males to participate and bring out the energy of this sport,” added promoters of the game.
“This is aimed at professionalising this sport and also providing a platform where the mobile community can be engaged through the dodging game application,” they also said.
DSG, the IT experts stated further, is committed to creating dodging clubs locally and internationally. “We are at the level of mobilising communities and personalities to create teams which shall participate in different competitions across national and international territories. We are also working to see that dodging is played as a professional sport globally in club and world tournaments” they said.
With respect to Cameroon, they have engaged a process of making the sport inclusive in the school curricula across all the educational levels and sectors ranging from primary schools to universities.
“We are also creating an enabling strategy which can get this sport included in FENASCO game, regional and national competitions. It will be our pleasure to engage our African communities to actively participate in bringing this vision alive by adopting this sport,” they said.
They added: “Dodging has the ability to compete with other games, especially with the energy and tension it builds during the process. Dodging is the only indigenous African sport that has the capacity to be played in an open field like a stadium of 100, 000+ spectators and we are working towards making it a reality. It is going to be a collective effort in projecting our home sports world wide. We are calling on the general public to support in whatever way possible to give this dream a life by actively engaging in all the activities that will be set in place”.
“…our objective is to reintroduce and rebrand our own games which tell our stories and represent our collective identity. This game will help maintain a historical connection between the older, younger and future generations,” they said of the dodging game.
They add that: “In achieving this, we have developed a game which will run from several versions till the maximum satisfaction is met. This game is branded “World Dodging Sport” (WDS). It is a game we seek to communicate the emotions of the local street players to the entire world. Taking into consideration that this present generation have drifted from what use to be a form community and youthful entertainments by embracing the glitz that comes with internet and technology. This sport is played over Africa but presently the percentage and euphoria surrounding this game is lost. So our objective is to reintroduce and rebrand our own games which tell our stories and represent our collective identity. This game will help maintain a historical connection between the older, younger and future generations.”
The dodging sport game can be accessed through https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.sdkgames.worlddogingsport