What are the Fondations of our Commitment ?

Why Judo and why Burundi?

History

• First contacts in 1982, `84 & `86
• Creation of the Burundian Federation of Judo in 1991
• Return to Burundi in 2001 during the civil war
• New actions since April 2006

During the early 80', Bernard Messner, current President of the Ligue d'Alsace de Judo, conducted several training courses in the context of Olympic Solidarity and the affiliation of the Burundian clubs at the French Judo federation as François Besson, Henri Courtine, Didier Janicot also did it. These first trips are at the base of the friendly relations between Burundian judokas and their French and Alsatian counterparts.

But the first years of civil war in Burundi from 1993 to 2006 came to put the fair promisess out of control. With the beginning of the year 2000, the contact was made again and that opened a new era of exchanges with strong objectives:  to use  judo and  sport like as a extraordinary tool for social development.

Why Sport ?

The sport is a tool with obvious educational virtues. Young people, but also adults, who practice sport are integrated in a process of learning rules of common evolution. Sport can be considered as a laboratory of life in society because the participants work out their relations with others and the possibilities of living together.

Thus it is impossible not to guess the social impact of the development of a sporting practice and the impact of Judo in a humanly ”parcelled country “.



The sport = vector of social and human development

Why Judo ?

Introduced by Belgians into the Sixties, Judo in Burundi has been a reality for more than 40 years. What gives to the practice of Judo a truly social meaning, is that this activity became today a wonderfull tool for rebuilding social links, broken by the civil war and that it is a main door towards other sectors.

Via the CACI, the Ligue d'Alsace de Judo thus started a basic work to support the Burundian Federation of Judo. Judo, more than one sport, can be considered, as its creator Jigoro Kano wished , like an art of living and a philosophy.

Master Kano said about judo: “it is a way for the rational use of energy. Used with an aim of physical improvement, it gets force and health. Applied to a goal of psychological and moral improvement, it becomes a mental drive. Applied to the social links, it becomes a way of living, a drive for life”.

Judo is an individual sport, but an individual sport which is practised in group. Each judoka, whatever his characteristics are (beginner/confirmed, large/small, endowed/needy, old/young etc…) need its training partners to progress on the “way of the suppleness” (literal translation of the Judo), heard like the way of adaptating and dodging of the power struggle.

Let us specify that the dimension of “fighting judo” is very largely secondary in our project, the participation in competitions concerns a will  to create a healthy emulation and to register the country in the international context.

We based our commitment on the Moral Code (see opposite) of Judo by making the promotion of values which found our project of international solidarity.

Moral Code of Judo

Why Burundi ?

• A country on human scale
• Dynamic and motivated interlocutors
• Difficulties related to the geopolitical situation
• A local request
• A indéfectible friendship since 25 years

Click on the map below