Author: Kazadi Mukendi

A regional forum amplifying youth voices For two intense days, 10 and 11 October 2025, the esplanade overlooking Dakar’s Atlantic shoreline became a laboratory of ideas. UNICEF-Sénégal invited more than two hundred adolescents from twenty-four West and Central African states to debate, draft and defend an education agenda designed by girls, for girls. The timing – on the eve of the United Nations International Day of the Girl – lent the conclave a symbolic gravitas that the participants embraced with disarming maturity. Among them, six delegates – Lucia, Frédéric, Charles, Rebecca, Shekinha and Euverte – carried the colours of the…

Brazzaville’s Semi-Marathon at Twenty When the starter’s pistol echoes along the banks of the Congo River on 14 August 2025, the Brazzaville International Half-Marathon (SMIB) will celebrate its twentieth edition. Born in 2005 under the aegis of the National Petroleum Company of Congo (SNPC) and held each year on the eve of Independence Day, the race has matured into a flagship of soft power, pairing athletic prowess with a festive assertion of national unity (SNPC press release, 2023). The high patronage of President Denis Sassou Nguesso underscores the state’s conviction that endurance sport can function as a consensual rallying point,…