With knees bent and his sword angled upwards, 14-year-old Souleymane Ndiaye* lunges towards his opponent. A dozen other young Senegalese boys – who have been in prison or care homes – scuttle back and forth along several playing strips (known as pistes), thrusting and parrying. Metallic clinks resonate around the fencing room on the edge of the city of Thiès, 40 miles east of the capital, Dakar.
“The physical sensation gives me a release,” says Ndiaye, removing his mesh mask and wiping the sweat from his face. “But the most important thing is that fencing has taught me how to respect others – my opponents and the coaches.”
Since 2012, more than 1,200 young people aged between five and 17 have taken part in fencing classes, according to Pour le Sourire d’un Enfant (“For a Child’s Smile”), the charity that organises the programme with Senegal’s prison authorities and justice ministry. Among them are more than 500 young inmates, none of whom have been rearrested since serving their time.
The classes form part of the Fencing and Restorative Justice scheme developed by Nelly Robin, who runs Pour le Sourire d’un Enfant alongside her work as a researcher with the French thinktank Institut de Recherche pour le Développement (Research Institute for Development).
Participants follow a 60-lesson programme that is geared towards instilling a sense of identity, responsibility, respect and self-discipline. The fencing classes are often mixed, providing a rare opportunity for male and female inmates to socialise.
The idea came to Robin in 2008 when she first took her young son to a fencing club. “There were children there who were hyperactive and had problems at home and at school. But as soon as they stepped on to the piste, they were fully focused and respected the rules,” she says.
There are no up-to-date statistics on the number of young offenders in Senegal. The latest available report dates back to 2006 and shows that there were nearly 600 youth inmates in Dakar alone – a figure that experts say is likely to have increased with population growth.
“There are children in prison for stealing phones or chickens,” says Ibrahima Sall, who runs Asred – a charity that helps prisoners and ex-inmates reintegrate into society. “There are children in this country who know nothing other than prison.”
However, others have committed more serious crimes than stealing poultry. The prospect of arming these inmates initially raised doubts among some of the prison staff in Thiès.
But fencing turned out to be ideally suited to rehabilitation. Participants begin each session with a salute, by raising their foil to each other and the referee; they raise their arm to acknowledge when an opponent has scored; they shake hands after each bout; and they are taught how to referee.
“They learn how to mediate conflict,” says Jacques Faye, an instructor who has been involved in the initiative from the beginning. “They become less aggressive, and the guards tell us that this has a positive effect on others in the prison – even those who don’t take part in our programme.”
The scheme has been so successful that it is now expanding. Classes will be launched for the first time in the cities of Nianing and Kaolack this week and elsewhere in Senegal later in the year.
Prison authorities and NGOs in Ivory Coast, Rwanda and Morocco have also expressed an interest in the scheme. Robin’s team have already conducted a research mission in Ivory Coast, where she hopes a fencing programme for inmates could begin next year.
“This project shows how sport can be used as a lever for development. Investing one euro in sport can save two euros in terms of health costs or in this case, law enforcement,” says Nelson Camara, director of Sport Impact, which is hosting an inaugural conference on sports development in Dakar on 31 May-2 June.
“In the development field, sport is often seen as the poor relation to other sectors like health, infrastructure and energy. But we need to change that.”
Fallou Diagne, 24, who participated in the programme as a young offender, is taking part in a panel discussion at the summit in front of ministers from across the continent, as well as representatives of development agencies, the UN and the private sector. He served four years for violent assault after joining a gang but says the method taught him “respect, confidence and patience”.
Since his release in 2020, he has helped as a teacher on the programme and harbours dreams of competing internationally. He says three others who were imprisoned with him but did not join the course have since been rearrested.
“Fencing has allowed me to build my future. I want to help others do the same,” he says.
* Name has been changed
