Cambodia

All for Sport

Founded in 2005, the Toutes à l’école association offers a high-level education to the most disadvantaged girls.

The word “diversity” is an integral part of the Decathlon Phnom Penh project written by the local teams at the end of 2020. They wanted to help young Cambodians from all walks of life to understand the potential benefits of sport in their daily lives.

“I want to help the social sector create more value, especially for people who lack the support and ability to study. I think the project I’ve chosen “SPORT PROJECTS WITH NGO PARTNERS” aims to share the sporting experience and we can also provide sports products to enable them to take part in sporting activities.”

Pisey Nang

URM Leader Decathlon Sen Sok

A project for girls’ education

In 2005, Tina Kieffer created the association Toutes à l’école This association has built a school for little girls from underprivileged families. The education of girls is a major problem in Cambodia. Many of them are forced to work from an early age to support their families, which keeps them away from school.

The Happy Chandara school provides quality education, including English, French and computer courses. It also places great emphasis on personal development, cultural awareness, sports and creativity. Today, the school accompanies more than 1,400 girls until they get their first job.

Within Happy Chandara, sport is a lever that acts on the health of the girls as well as on the development of their skills. Then, the Decathlon Foundation is proud to have supported the construction of a sports field within the Happy Chandara school itself, enabling more than 1000 young girls to discover the benefits of sport.

On the occasion of the inauguration of the field, we had the pleasure to attend a demonstration of Taekwondo, basketball and sports games, regularly practiced by the young girls within the school. In this respect, we learned that one of the students of Happy Chandara finished 3rd in the famous Angkor marathon.

Anne-Céline Prigent, former decathlete and Communications Manager at Happy Chandara School

“As a former Decathlon athlete, a keen equestrian and the mother of two little girls aged 8 and 5, I’m very involved for personal and professional reasons with Decathlon and HCS. This project is particularly close to my heart, as I’d like to pass on to young girls the message that, thanks to the values of sport, they can become whoever they want to be.

We’re in the 21st century, but all too often women still face obstacles on the road to emancipation. Sport is one of the vectors that can help us leap over these final hurdles, and I believe that role models can be a formidable lever. Sport has certainly helped me gain self-confidence, test my limits and measure myself against others. It’s a good school for surpassing oneself, for change and agility. Today, thanks to this project at Happy Chandara School, I’d like to pass on these values to children and young girls from underprivileged backgrounds.

I also believe that physical education and sports are an essential part of quality education, and should be developed in schools, especially now with Covid-19.”

The Decathlon Cambodia teams play a key role in supporting these young girls. Donation of sports equipment, organization of sports events within the school and professional support for the students are their main actions. We would like to thank the local teams of Decathlon Cambodia for their investment as well as the association Toutes à l’école for this impactful project.