How Dakar 2026 is being built into a long-term national project and where UTS aligns
When the Youth Olympic Games open at the Stade Abdoulaye Wade on 31 October 2026, Senegal will make history as the host of the first Olympic event ever staged on African soil. Some 2,700 athletes from 207 delegations will compete across 25 sports until 13 November. But the ambition for Dakar 2026 reaches well beyond the competition venues.
On 5 September 2026, at the Iba Mar Diop Stadium in Dakar, President Bassirou Diomaye Faye launched DUNDAL JOJ, the national campaign of mobilisation and engagement around the Games. Its premise is captured in the President’s own words at the launch: the legacy of the Games “will not wait for the Closing Ceremony. It is being built right now, in our schools, in our neighbourhoods, in our lives.”
Setting out the campaign’s longer horizon was Diamil Faye, appointed Special Adviser to the President of the Republic for Sport in March 2026. His framing is deliberately expansive: Dakar 2026 should be the starting point of a development programme spanning sport, education, environment, health, employment, culture and inclusion, sustained to 2035 and potentially 2040. Success, on this reading, will be measured twice, first by the Games Senegal delivers, and then by what remains afterwards. As he put it: “When the Games are over, we want the people of Senegal to be in a position to ask for more Games.”
Bringing the Games to the community
DUNDAL JOJ is designed to make Dakar 2026 a shared national experience rather than a capital-city event. The campaign works through families, schools, businesses, local authorities and community organisations, with an explicit commitment to reach girls and boys alike, and communities in the most remote areas as well as urban ones.
Access sits at the centre of that effort. At the launch ceremony, President Faye announced a contribution of 500 million CFA francs from the Fondation Nationale Sénégal Solidaire, an initiative of First Lady Marie Khone Faye, which will fund the purchase of 200,000 tickets for distribution through schools and associations serving disadvantaged neighbourhoods and under-resourced communities. At an average of around 2,500 CFA per ticket, the allocation forms a substantial part of a wider solidarity ticketing program of more than 300,000 tickets, out of some 964,000 placed on sale. For children who would otherwise watch from a distance, being in the stands is where a lasting relationship with sport often begins.
The cultural dimension is being carried across the country in parallel. The Youth Olympic Flame began a 46-day national tour on 14 September under the slogan “Pass the Energy”, travelling through all fourteen of Senegal’s regions with more than 30 stops before the Opening Ceremony. Festival villages, caravans and community celebrations are planned alongside it, and visiting delegations will be offered an “expérience Sénégal” built around local art, cuisine and heritage, an invitation into the spirit of Teranga that gives Senegalese hospitality its particular warmth.
Giving young people a voice
Schools are central to the vision. Senegalese Olympians, world champions and former national champions will visit pupils to share their experience and encourage a new generation to see itself in sport. “We want to inspire,” Diamil Faye said. The education strand also includes the distribution of school kits reaching more than 150,000 pupils and teachers, renovation of school facilities, school twinning and inter-school challenges, nutrition programs, and activities strengthening female leadership.
Alongside these, the campaign calls on partners including international sports federations, businesses and foundations to help improve school environments and introduce young people to new disciplines. That call for both popular and financial mobilisation was explicit at the launch, and it is where external partners can add the most value: not parallel programs, but capacity added to Senegalese-led ones.
UTS: turning youth participation into action
This commitment to youth participation is also guiding our preparations for Dakar 2026. United Through Sports is developing a program of educational and inclusive activities during the Games, designed so that young people are not spectators of the conversation but participants in it.
At the heart of this work is the Senegal Youth Assembly, which we are developing as a space for young people to examine issues shaping their daily lives and put forward their own proposals for change. Our UTS Young Leaders are helping bring the Assembly to life as speakers and facilitators, supporting discussion, drawing out quieter voices and helping participants turn ideas into proposed actions.
Our wider preparations include a schools program delivered with UTS Young Leaders and athletes from a range of sports, visiting schools in Dakar and other locations. Each visit introduces pupils to three or four sports or movement activities, pairing demonstrations with the chance to take part, in a deliberately festival-like atmosphere of games and playful challenges. Young Leaders share personal stories about sport, education, inclusion and leadership, with teamwork, respect and the Olympic Values woven throughout.
Where the alignment lies
The overlap between DUNDAL JOJ and the UTS approach is unusually direct, which makes practical collaboration straightforward rather than aspirational:
- Schools as the delivery channel. DUNDAL JOJ places schools at the centre of its education and legacy strand; UTS delivers through schools by design, with multi-sport visits and Young Leader-led sessions ready to slot into the campaign’s existing school network.
- Champions and role models meeting pupils. The campaign is mobilising Senegalese Olympians and champions to visit classrooms. UTS brings a complementary international layer, Young Leaders and athletes from multiple sports and countries extending reach without duplicating effort.
- Introducing new disciplines. DUNDAL JOJ explicitly asks international federations to help introduce young people to new sports. UTS convenes exactly that network, and can bring several federations into a single school visit rather than a series of separate ones.
- Youth voice. The campaign’s ambition to give young Senegalese a genuine platform aligns closely with the Senegal Youth Assembly, which offers a ready-made, facilitated structure for young people to raise concerns and propose action.
- Inclusion and gender equity. DUNDAL JOJ commits to reaching girls and boys, urban and remote communities alike; inclusive and accessible sport, and women in sport, are core UTS priorities and feature directly in Assembly programming.
- Legacy after the Closing Ceremony. The campaign’s central test is what remains. UTS leaves teachers and local coaches with activities they can continue using, capacity that stays in the school once the visit ends.
A legacy that continues to grow
DUNDAL JOJ also links the Games to visible improvement in community environments. Planned activities include green walks and solidarity marathons, clean-up and environmental awareness campaigns, reforestation, and the development of gardens and parks. The reforestation target is significant: 100,000 trees planted by the end of October, an objective Diamil Faye set out directly at the launch. Neighbourhood, family and school challenges are intended to keep communities invested in shared spaces once the Games have passed, a legacy young people help create themselves, and can still see in daily life years later.
Over the longer term, the vision extends to sports governance and training systems, and to sustained use of the venues built or refurbished for Dakar 2026 all delivered, according to the organisers, ahead of the Games. The aim is a sporting ecosystem capable of producing talent and hosting future international competitions without repeated heavy capital spending.
DUNDAL JOJ sets an ambitious direction for what these Games can make possible. Delivering it will require sustained commitment from institutions and partners, with communities closely involved throughout. Through our work towards Dakar 2026, UTS is committed to supporting that ambition and to helping young people take their place within it. The most meaningful legacy will be found in the opportunities they can reach, and the role they continue to play long after the Games have ended.
