Connecting with the congolese youth and inspiring them, and celebrating congolese culture using basketball and music. Those are the goals of the Ibaka Games, which were held for the fourth straight year in Brazzaville, Republic of Congo’s capital and Serge Ibaka’s hometown. In partnership with Cowbell Milk, the event hosted boys and girls from three to eighteen years old and public from all ages.
The event consisted of different activities, outdoor and indoor, at the Makélékélé sports center. Outside, the youngest children from different orphanages participated in an initiation basketball clinic with Serge Ibaka. It was him, too, that greeted the directors of each institution. They received the symbolic bags of dairy product that illustrated the contribution that they will receive during the whole year. Still outside, there were dance, music and art performances building up the anticipation of the main event inside the gym.
In the morning and in the previous day, a selection of kids, fourteen to eighteen years old, had participated in a Serge Ibaka Dreams Academy basketball camp. In the afternoon, the same kids played an exhibition game for the crowd, that filled the stands in an unprecedented way in the city. Almost 4.000 congolese where in attendance. Musical performances and a dunk contest followed and preceded the main event, the celebrity game with Serge Ibaka himself and guests like profesional basketball players Christian Eyenga and Chanel Mokango, or congolese comedias like Saï Saï and Esobe. The crowd cheered and experienced an event rarely seen in the Congo. It was a big celebration of african culture and sports that will for sure have another chapter next summer.
